Existing community engagement and service-learning models intrinsically focus on placement-based experiences. This matches much of the early work in service-learning and fits those contexts well. However, engineering community engagement is typically project-based, which introduces elements and considerations not explicitly covered by these existing models. Balancing the many aspects and interconnections of high-impact community engagement is challenging. A project deliverable is central to many engineering experiences, while the project process, including activities and relationships, also binds the system and experience together. Both of these generate and redistribute value to the stakeholders from the resources input. A visual model has been developed which facilitates reflection on program design, development, and assessment. The model drives intentional consideration, definition, and organization of stakeholders, project deliverables, project process, recourses input, and value produced.
This newly created model has been applied to two cases, as examples of how it can be utilized across diverse programs. One program is large and has a strong emphasis on design. The second is smaller and focused on outreach. Both engage primarily engineering students and seek to balance the interests of multiple partners. The model is shown to be adaptable for these differing cases and provides an effective framework for reflection on their structures. The model offers opportunities to explicitly define stakeholders as well as to highlight and discuss both the recourses provided and the value gained by each of the various stakeholders through the engagement project deliverables and process. Examples are shared from each of the cases considered in this paper. Discussion is included on the value of the modeling process, in addition to where the model can be applied as a practical program tool or scholarly theoretical framework. Future work will include refining the model and adding tools to make the model even more helpful to practitioners and researchers.
Paul A. Leidig works in learning and organizational development within the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. He received his B.S. in Architectural Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University. Dr. Leidig is licensed as a Professional Engineer in the state of Colorado and has six years of structural engineering consulting experience. He has focused on community-engaged engineering and design for over fifteen years.
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6183-045X
Purdue University at West Lafayette
[biography]
William (Bill) Oakes is the Assistant Dean for Experiential Learning, a 150th Anniversary Professor, Director of the EPICS Program, Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University, and a registered professional engineer. He is one of the founding faculty in the School of Engineering Education having courtesy appointments in Mechanical, Environmental and Ecological Engineering and Curriculum and Instruction. He was the first engineer to receive the U.S. Campus Compact Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning and a co-recipient of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering’s Bernard Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education. He is a fellow of NSPE and ASEE and elected to the ASEE Hall of Fame.
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