Exploring the Challenge of Documenting and Measuring Civic Engagement Endeavors of Colleges and Universities: Purposes, Issues, Ideas

Explores the nature of measuring the civic engagement activities of a college. Campus Compact brought together a group experts to recognize campus civic engagement and service-learning efforts. This paper was prepared for this meeting, and discusses the definition of civic engagement, reasons for measuring it, what aspects of civic engagement should be measured, and provides examples of projects which document and evaluate civic engagement endeavors. Programs profiled include Portland State University's assessment model, how this model has been applied to other institutions such as the Health Professions Schools in Service to the Nation, and the Urban Universities Portfolio Project (composed of six universities).