Engagement Scholarship Consortium International Conference Pathways to Prosperity: Building Sustainable Futures through Community Engagement

October 9-10, 2024

Pre-Conference: October 7-8

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Hosted by Oregon State University and the member institutions of the ESC Western Region

Pre-Conferences

Emerging Engagement Scholars Workshop (EESW)

Schedule:

Monday, October 7, 2024 | 1:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Tuesday, October 8, 2024 | 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Cost: $200

Application Deadline: April 8, 2024

This intensive professional development program provides advanced doctoral students and early career faculty with background literature, facilitated discussion, mentoring, and presentations designed to increase their knowledge and enhance their practice of community-engaged scholarship. Participation in the Emerging Engagement Scholars Workshop (EESW) is limited, and interested applicants must be nominated to be considered for this workshop.

Learn more at the 2024 EESW webpage

Engagement Academy for University Leaders (EA) Seminar

Leading Engagement Amid Growing Distrust in American Higher Education

Schedule:

Monday, October 7, 2024 | 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Cost: $240 - Participation fee includes breakfast, lunch, and post-seminar reception

Engagement leaders face a challenging paradox. On one hand, more and more institutions are prioritizing community-engagement as a core institutional practice.  As of 2024, more than 450 institutions have earned the designation of Carnegie community-engaged institutions. On the other hand, public trust in higher education has hit a new low.  A 2023 Gallup poll reveals that the majority of respondents now lack confidence in our colleges and universities.  As engagement leaders, how do we make sense of shifting perceptions of higher education across the diverse communities that we serve? Does our engagement work provide an effective response to restoring confidence in American higher education? What revisions to our current strategies might we employ to bolster trustworthiness in our institutions?

Join us for an interactive session that will feature testimonies, readings, and small/large group discussions to address this critical topic facing higher education leaders across the country.

Learn more at the 2024 EA webpage

Outreach and Engagement Practitioners Network (OEPN)

Pathways for Change: Advice and Tools from Boundary Spanning Changemakers

Schedule:

Tuesday, October 8, 2024 | 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Cost: $125 - Participation fee includes programming materials and meals

Join us in Portland, Oregon, this fall for the Outreach and Engagement Practitioners Network (OEPN) pre-conference workshop. The workshop will provide the opportunity to connect with other outreach and engagement professionals while exploring our boundary-spanning roles in today’s higher education landscape.

OEPN is a community of practice for university staff, non-tenure-track faculty, and community partners. These outreach and engagement practitioners —or “boundary spanners”—develop and sustain relationships between higher education institutions and community partner organizations by facilitating, managing, directing, and administering ongoing projects, programs, services, and research. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn to join our community updates and discussions:

Learn more at the 2024 OEPN webpage

Pre-College and Youth Programming Workshop

Schedule:

Monday, October 7 | 9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Tuesday, October 8 | 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Registration: Register at: https://precollege.oregonstate.edu/osu-youth-impact-summit

 The relationship between a university and the community is a coveted part of the college experience. In engaging the Pre-College audience, universities can promote dialogue on the education and preparation of both college and K-12 students. At the Pre-College and Youth Programming Workshop through the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, professionals can expect to discuss new strategies for continuing development of university youth programming with university professionals from across disciplines.

Join us for two days of professional development workshops, featuring sessions on building partnerships, engaging with K-12 audiences, mental and physical health, and arts and STEM education. Keynote speakers for this event are Youth Development and Pre-College experts Mr. Brodrick Clarke, the Vice President of Programs and Systems Quality for the National Summer Learning Association and Dr. Susan Sheth, the Director of Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) at Michigan State University. This workshop series will connect you with other higher ed professionals while exploring various strategies for elevating the Pre-College programs at your institution."

Transformational Relationship Evaluation Scale (TRES)

Seeing the Forest Through the TRES:

Exploring Interventions to Deepen Community-Campus Partnerships

Facilitators: Haden M. Botkin, Robert G. Bringle, Jasmina Camo-Biogradilja, Patti H. Clayton, Lori E. Kniffin

Schedule:

Tuesday, October 8 | 8:00 am - 4:30 pm

Cost: 

$225 for faculty and staff

$160 Students and community partners

Community-campus partnerships are – or can be – vehicles for meaningful learning, growth, and change. However, in order for such aims to be fulfilled, questions around partnership dynamics and quality must be engaged with: For example, how can partnerships deepen over time, especially through intentional collaborative actions of the partners themselves? How do we all – as partners – get on the same page about whether and in what ways we intend our partnerships to be transformational? How do we know whether partnerships are deepening and what processes contribute toward (or hinder) that deepening? Beyond our particular partnerships, what questions might we pursue in order to continue advancing the field’s understanding of partnership processes? In this pre-conference workshop, an interdisciplinary, interinstitutional team of facilitators will share and engage participants with an expansive (and deep!) body of work connected to TRES (pronounced “trees”), the Transformational Relationship Evaluation Scale and the research-grounded Reflection Framework that can accompany it.

In particular, we invite partnerships as a whole (whether dyads, triads, or larger groups) to register for and participate in this session together as we will spend a portion of the session using - not just discussing - TRES and the Reflection Framework in real time to not only gain familiarity with the tools but also explore our own partnership dynamics and from them co-generate concrete strategies for deepening the relationships, processes, and results that comprise our work together. If it is not feasible for more than one member of your partnership to participate in the workshop or if your goal is to build your own capacity to support other partnerships, you are welcome to join us as an individual.

Specifically, we will explore the conceptual underpinnings of TRES and apply the scale and excerpts from the Reflection Framework to your own contexts for research and practice. You will be invited to share your own efforts to deepen and inquire into partnerships. Facilitators will share research on the utility and impact of the TRES Reflection Framework, which demonstrates that commitment to and clarity around partnerships increases and partnership gatherings, communication, and inclusivity are enhanced through collaborative use of TRES.

Participants will leave the workshop with the TRES scale and Reflection Framework for their own later use, concrete strategies for deepening partnerships (your own and/or those you support), ideas for future inquiry, and an invitation to collaborate with the TRES team in ongoing research and tool development. Please join us for a highly interactive, enjoyable, and educational session as we play together with TRES!