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COMMUNITY-CENTERED INQUIRY

Public and Engaged Scholarship in Geography

 

Defining Public and Engaged Scholarship

Public and engaged scholarship (PES) encompasses the processes, products, and outcomes of knowledge production in collaboration with a variety of actors, including diverse communities, policymakers, and nonprofit organizations. A central principle of PES is that it is conducted, typically over the long term, in close collaboration with community members (broadly defined), to address a community-identified question or need, with the goal of producing knowledge in ways that are not extractive.

In 2022, AAG convened a taskforce on PES  with the goals of 1) developing a set of recommendations for how the organization could promote, reward, and protect PES by geographers inside and outside academia and 2) producing a set of best practices for documenting and evaluating PES scholarship in theses, dissertations, and promotion processes/personnel reviews. (For a list of the Task Force members and more information, See Past President Rebecca Lave’s article from October 5, 2023)

To meet the first of these goals, the AAG created a new major honor to highlight outstanding public and engaged scholarship in Geography; and adopted a resolution in support of PES as a valuable form of geographic scholarship. To meet the second of these goals, the taskforce developed a draft sample rubric for documenting and evaluating PES scholarship. The taskforce also reviewed existing tenure and promotion standards for PES in U.S. Geography departments and selected one from Indiana University Bloomington that could serve as a starting point for departments and institutions interested in formally expanding their promotion/personnel review policies to include PES.

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AAG Council resolution in support of Public and Engaged Scholarship in Geography

In 2024, the AAG Council adopted the following resolution on Public and Engaged Scholarship:

The American Association of Geographers recognizes Public and Engaged Scholarship (PES) as an important form of geographic scholarship. PES is important because it links teaching and research directly to the public good and aligns colleges and universities with broader public communities and their interests. Public-and-engaged scholarship (PES) encompasses the processes, products, and outcomes of knowledge production in collaboration with a variety of actors, including diverse communities, policymakers, and non-profit organizations. We encourage academic departments, public agencies, NGOs and other organizations that employ geographers to put in place policies and processes to protect and value PES.

 

A VALUED PRACTICE

Supporting Collaborative Knowledge Production

A PES approach to scholarship is built upon a foundation of trust-building and accountability. It goes beyond merely naming a “community” as a partner and invests in long-term personal and professional relationships with actual community members. Within PES, “community” is a malleable concept defined by individuals involved that can refer to a specific organization, geographic area, or collection of individuals or grassroots groups with a common goal, working at local, regional, national or even international scales. PES can mobilize a range of methodologies and approaches, some based on academic approaches, others based on community traditions. PES scholarship innately values the collaborative labor that makes partnerships possible because it requires significant reciprocal long-term relationship-building with external partners to maximize its quality and impact. Even shorter-term projects can be elements of longer-term relationship building, which is an important element of PES.

As explained by the University of Minnesota’s Office for Public Engagement, PES helps to “enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.” Expanding on this, PES can help geographers develop novel and complex research questions. Engagement in PES through capstone courses or other research opportunities can prepare students for real world complexities, teach empathy and humility; and offer grounded opportunities for collaborative problem solving. Finally, PES’s explicit commitment to public service is aligned with the mission of many of the institutions where geographers work, and with the requirements of many public and private funding sources. It is one important pathway by which geographers can address critical social and environmental issues and strengthen civic and democratic practices in academia.

To better value public and engaged scholarship, it is crucial to explicitly include institutional tenure and promotion guidelines/personnel review policies. After reviewing promotion guidelines from U.S. Geography departments, the PES Taskforce chose Indiana University Bloomington’s as a starting point for other institutions.

View the sample policy excerpt

It is critical for academic programs and departments to acknowledge that PES is different from conventional scholarship in its timeline, constraints, and results. PES projects tend to take far more time than typical academic research projects (often two to three times as long, or longer). Respectful, reciprocal collaboration with communities, for whom research is not the first priority, takes time. Public and engaged scholars also face constraints about the questions asked, data collected, and results disseminated because the community being studied has substantial input into all stages of the project, including the right to refuse. Finally, the results of PES scholarship can include peer-reviewed journal articles, op/eds, and other easy to recognize written products, but more often they include much less tangible products, such as community meetings, capacity building, or policy changes. Some of this may be quantifiable, but much of it will need to be demonstrated via rich description, letters from the community, and other qualitative measures. There is no H-index equivalent for PES. Thus, just as we contextualize peer-reviewed publications or more conventional measures of productivity and impact via tenure and promotion statements, it is important to contextualize PES to demonstrate its impact and enable evaluation.

This rubric is a good place to start. The categories it calls out can serve as guides for presenting PES work, and for evaluating. It is crucial to emphasize that the listed categories are things a PES project might do, not things they must do.

View the evaluation rubric
Leadership

Public and Engaged Scholarship Task Force

  • Tamara Beigas, Harford Community College
  • Pablo Bose, University of Vermont
  • Katherine Clifford, University of Colorado Boulder
  • José Constantine, Williams College
  • Dydia DeLyser, California State University Fullerton
  • Caroline Gottschalk-Druschke, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Nik Heynen, University of Georgia
  • Faith Kearns, Arizona Water Innovation Initiative
  • Melanie Malone, U Washington Bothell
  • Jennifer Mapes, Kent State University
  • Beth Rose Middleton Manning, University of California Davis
  • Nick Shapiro, UCLA
  • Dan Trudeau, Macalester College
  • Haley Wilmer, USDA Agricultural Research
  • Rebecca Lave, Indiana University (chair)
  • Gary Langham, AAG Executive Director, (ex officio member)
Resources

Tools and Examples for Advancing PES in Departmental Policy

The AAG PES Task Force has compiled a set of resources to support departments and institutions seeking to more fully recognize PES within tenure and promotion policies. Together, these resources are intended to provide practical reference points and adaptable examples for departments developing or refining their own approaches to PES.

 

After reviewing tenure and promotion standards for PES in U.S. Geography departments, the AAG PES taskforce selected Indiana University Bloomington’s guidelines as a starting point for institutions interested in formally recognizing PES in promotion and personnel reviews.

View the sample policy excerpt

 

This evaluation rubric offers a structured framework to support tenure and promotion review of PES work. The categories outline representative forms of contribution and impact that PES projects may exhibit and should be used as guiding considerations, not required elements.

View the evaluation rubric

 

UCLA—Community Engagement and PES Evaluation
UCLA has established comprehensive guidelines for evaluating PES in tenure and promotion processes. The university emphasizes the importance of clear criteria and the inclusion of non-academic peer reviews to assess the impact and quality of engaged scholarship. UCLA supports faculty by providing the necessary tools and frameworks to effectively document and present their PES work, ensuring it is appropriately recognized in academic evaluations. Read UCLA’s Tenure and Promotion Policy for Engaged Scholarship Report

University of Minnesota—Office for Public Engagement
The University of Minnesota allows faculty to include PES in their tenure reviews through an opt-in supplemental review process. The university encourages the use of both traditional and non-traditional metrics to assess the impact of engaged scholarship, ensuring that PES is fully acknowledged as a vital part of a faculty member’s scholarly contributions.

University of Wisconsin-Madison—Morgridge Center for Public Service
The Morgridge Center at UW-Madison has developed detailed guidelines for incorporating PES into faculty reviews. Faculty are encouraged to document service-learning courses, student projects, and other forms of engaged scholarship within their teaching and service portfolios. The university also offers resources on effectively presenting PES during tenure and promotion evaluations.

Syracuse University—Office of Community Engagement
Syracuse University allows faculty to incorporate PES into their tenure dossiers, evaluating their work based on its depth, impact, and the reciprocal relationships established with community partners. Syracuse provides a flexible framework for integrating PES into academic careers while ensuring recognition for contributions to the public good.

Liberal arts colleges are particularly well-suited for integrating PES due to their emphasis on close faculty-student collaboration and community engagement. Here are examples from institutions that have successfully incorporated PES into their tenure and promotion processes:

Bates College—Harward Center for Community Partnerships
Bates College explicitly includes community-engaged scholarship in its tenure and promotion criteria, recognizing the value of such work in addressing community needs while contributing to academic scholarship.

Macalester College—Civic Engagement Center
Macalester College recognizes PES as a part of faculty evaluation, with tenure guidelines that allow for the inclusion of public scholarship in tenure dossiers.

Swarthmore College—Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility
Swarthmore College allows PES to be included in tenure and promotion dossiers, evaluating it based on scholarly merit, community collaboration, and impact.

Trinity College—Center for Urban and Global Studies
Trinity College incorporates community-engaged scholarship into its tenure criteria, recognizing the importance of such work in advancing both academic and public goals.

Occidental College—Center for Community Based Learning
Occidental College recognizes PES as a valid component of the tenure process, encouraging faculty to document the scholarly and community impact of their work.