For Our Faculty & Staff

The Center for Service Learning and Volunteerism works with faculty and staff to offer educational opportunities that advance students' awareness of, and involvement in, their broader community and the common good through engaged scholarship. We seek to connect faculty and students with efforts that simultaneously meet community needs and enhance learning through service learning, community-based research, and other forms of community partnerships.

What is Engaged Scholarship?

Engaged Scholarship is built upon reciprocal relationships between Universities and communities. It requires that educators and students venture beyond the halls of academia to connect with residents and community stakeholders, all of whom play an equally integral role in the Engaged Scholarship process.

At the University of Memphis, Engaged Scholarship:

• Involves academic projects that engage faculty members and students in a collaborative and sustained manner with community groups.
• Connects university outreach endeavors with community organizational goals.
• Furthers reciprocal relationships between the university and the community.
• Entails shared authority in the research process from design to implementation.
• Results in excellence through such products as peer-reviewed publications, peer-reviewed collaborative reports, documentation of impact, and external funding.

Within the University, faculty and staff enrich the learning experience of Memphis students through participatory action research, engaged learning, and internships. Additionally, Members of the UofM community also travel all over the country, lecturing and presenting at conferences in an effort to expand engaged scholarship throughout the broader academic field.

The Engaged Scholarship Network is a multidisciplinary group faculty from departments across the University who support and practice engaged research and learning principles. The Committee currently sponsors several programs to support engaged scholarship: Engaged Scholarship Research Grants, Engaged Learning Fellows, Engaged Scholarship Mentors, Engaged Scholarship Conference Travel Grants, and a Community Partner Award. The committee welcomes new members to bi-monthly meetings to hear presentations from our peers, discuss opportunities for partnerships, research, publications, and more.

Check out their webpage or contact the committee at ESinfo@memphis.edu.