In recent years, social media has provided higher education institutions with new means of communication with their target groups. In this study, research was conducted on top public universities from four countries in Central Europe, with a focus on their Public Relations activities on Facebook. The purpose of this research is to explore the use…

Purpose: This study examines the critical role of higher education in conflict zones, focusing on the northern regions of Syria affected by Operation Olive Branch and Operation Euphrates Shield. It explores how educational leaders navigate security challenges, community relations and curriculum development to sustain academic activities during…

Colleges and universities have always had interesting relationships with their external communities, whether they are cities, towns, or something in between. In many cases, they are the main economic driver for their regions--State College, Pennsylvania, or Raleigh, North Carolina, for example--and in others, they exist side by side with thriving…

To address the Council on Accreditation of Parks, Recreation, Tourism, and Related Professions accreditation standard 7.01.01, the Entry Level Competency Assessment was developed to measure 46 competencies in four categories needed by entry level professionals. Students rated their competence prior to beginning their senior internship. The results…

The mission of The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN) is to advance civic engagement and engaged scholarship among research universities. TRUCEN has adopted the following goals for advancing civic engagement and engaged scholarship as part of the core mission of all research universities: (1) Encourage community-engaged…

This essay builds on and extends earlier research and writing that the authors have done, trying to understand how a commitment to local engagement, which is the term commonly used at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), becomes embedded in the core work of the institution. Their inquiries have been guided by social psychologist Kurt Lewin's…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of student-community engagement in ensuring relevance of higher education to civil, social, economic and moral issues. It reviews the literature around three inter-related themes: calls for higher education institutions to engage with their communities; the kinds of attributes university…

In economically challenging times, institutions of higher education are often forced to make cuts that would not be considered during times of prosperity. If one such decision is to eliminate the music degree, what factors might contribute to such a decision and what repercussions might be felt after it? How do faculty, administrators, alumni, and…

Michigan State University embarked upon an initiative to explore deliberative dialogue as a tool for addressing community-based contested issues in agriculture and natural resources. Our goal is to assess the extent to which deliberative dialogue can help "bridge the divides" among citizens and professionals and fulfill the land-grant…

Benjamin Franklin founded the University of Pennsylvania as a secular institution with the pragmatic aim of instilling in its students the inclination and ability to serve humankind in both the civic and mercantile realms. On this, the three hundredth anniversary of his birth (1706-2006), Franklin's ideal of a democratic, engaged university has…

This paper focuses on how community educators might collaborate to help break the cycle of frustration, failure, and violence that shadows many disadvantaged inner-city African American students. It suggests that persistent, race-based inequities in urban areas are a major factor in this syndrome. These causes are proposed to be disparity in…