Committee Information - Organizational Structure of Council 2003-2004

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Overall Goal:
The overall goals of this council will be to incorporate public engagement as a permanent and pervasive priority in teaching, learning, and research activities throughout the university and to enlist support for public engagement among all segments of the university and in the larger community.

Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Definition of an Engaged University:
Engagement is the partnership of university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.

A. The Council will be composed of five work groups, whose members have an interest in relevant issues and who represent a wide range of perspectives. Each work group will address a particular theme under the overall charge to the Council. Each work group will have two co-chairs who will call meetings, address the issues (other topics may be added) outlined below, and draft committee report and recommendations for submission to the Council by April 1, 2004. Progress reports are requested for the December 10, 2003 and February 11, 2004 Council meetings.

B. College Liaisons have been appointed by the Deans and Chancellors to carry out the following objectives:

• Identify significant examples within each college of measurable accomplishments within the CIC definition of an engaged university
• Identify undergraduate and graduate students within each college, who are involved in significant engaged research and community partnerships, whose work will be recognized through events such as Impress the President (a roundtable with the president featuring student presentations of their public scholarship), and the Mary M. McEvoy Award for Public Engagement and Leadership (from GAPSA.)
• Publicize within each college the annual Outstanding Community Service Awards and help identify candidates for these awards
• As members of the Assessment Work Group, develop meaningful measures by which the University can assess and report the public engagement components of its teaching, learning, and research opportunities

Liaison activities will be coordinated by Vic Bloomfield, Vice Provost.

C. The work groups will address the following topics in accordance
with the overall charge to the council (other topics may be added):

Assessment
Charge statement: develop appropriate and feasible measures of the University efforts in publicly engaged teaching, learning, and research, and the impacts and outcomes of those efforts;

• Develop specific short term and long term expected outcomes of council activities
• Define ways that the University of Minnesota would be different in five years as a fully engaged university
• Develop measures, which can be tracked over time, of public engagement as an indicator of institutional performance

Communication
Charge Statement: develop, implement and evaluate the results of a more robust internal and external communications strategy focused on themes of publicly engaged research and scholarship, teaching and learning, and community partnerships;

• Increase accessibility to external and internal groups, organizations and communities to University resources by using technology through the University portal and other relevant ways
• Target messages of engaged university activities and programs to specific audiences
• Develop practical proposals for strengthening mutually beneficial connections with alumni and other constituents

Innovations
Charge Statement: identify opportunities to develop new programs, as well as support continuation and/ expansion of existing programs that are effective in involving students, faculty, alumni, and others in engaged activities;

• Implications of civic engagement for curriculum, learning experiences (including service learning and other forms of civic education), and student life at the undergraduate and graduate levels
• Develop proposals for strengthening civic learning in particular units
• Identify benefits to students of an engaged university
• Identify benefits to the University of engaged students
• Develop practical proposals for expanding student participation in engaged activities
• Provide leadership for seed grants selection process

Partnerships
Charge Statement: identify and promote conditions for successful, interactive, mutually beneficial partnerships as the main basis for the University's connections to external groups, organizations, and communities;

• Further develop last year's typology -- and key examples by getting community feedback
• Work with Vic Bloomfield and the College Liaisons to map important partnership in colleges and develop strategies (with communications) for publicity, especially those with strong teaching and research dimensions
• Strengthen the partnership dimension of President Bruinink's emerging
  initiatives
• Identify and strengthen partnership dimensions of faculty and curricular development efforts
• Develop strategies for funding partnership efforts that strengthen teaching and research

Recognition
Charge statement: develop, implement, and evaluate the results of an integrated strategy for embedding recognition of publicly engaged work more deeply within institutional processes for incentives, rewards, and awards;

• Develop practical ways to recognize, encourage and reward varied forms of engaged activities among students, faculty, staff, administrators within colleges and other units
• Identify ways to acknowledge and articulate public engagement as an institutional priority for the University
• Give leadership to the Outstanding Community Service Awards program

D. Timetable: During the year the Council will adopt practical recommendations based on reports from the work groups. Each work group is asked to submit a progress report for the December 10, 2003 meeting and a final brief report by April 1, 2004. These reports will be reviewed by the entire council to be used for an annual report to the Executive Vice President and Provost on May 15, 2004.

E. Chair of the Council: The chair will convene, coordinate, and direct the council and its work groups; coordinate relations; draft annual report based on the reports and recommendations from committee with approval by the council; represent the council publicly and present its recommendations; oversee the monitoring and assessment of results.

F. Steering Committee: The Steering Committee will give guidance to the Chair of the Council and is made up of administration and faculty/staff representatives. The four Vice Provosts will be an Oversight Committee to the Chair: Vic Bloomfield, Craig Swan, Al Sullivan, and Billie Wahlstrom.

G. Budget for Council and Work Task Groups: Each committee is given up to $500 (contact Sue Engelmann,engel026@umn.edu) for convening expenses. The budget will cover the overall expenses to operate the council including the website, meeting expenses, forums, and pilot programs/projects.

COPE Meetings 2003-4
COPE members will convene for three meetings this year to share the issues of their work groups, and discuss overall issues relevant to COPE. Most of the work will happen through the work groups, which may happen face to face or online. The Co-chairs will take leadership for convening the work groups.

December 10, 2003, 238a Morrill Hall 2:30-4:30
February 11, 2004, 238a Morrill Hall 2:30-4:30
April 14, 2004, 238a Morrill Hall 2:30-4:30

COPE Work Groups for 2003-4:

The public purposes and responsibilities entailed in a commitment to civic engagement are the following:

 ACCESS TO LEARNING: to assure the highest quality undergraduate, graduate, and lifelong learning opportunities to students regardless of age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, income, or disability as part of connected learning experiences that extend from K-12 schooling to collegiate education, professional training and throughout a lifetime;
 ENHANCED DIVERSITY: to promote the inclusion and participation throughout the university and in the larger community of people with diverse backgrounds and voices, nourishing a vigorous pluralism in American society;
 CIVIC LEARNING: to develop among all our students the civic competence and critical thinking that empower them as effective citizens in their localities, states, nations and in a global environment, and to develop among people from varied backgrounds the capacity for responsible leadership in private, association, and public organizations and institutions
 PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP: to foster new knowledge and creative expression in the arts, sciences, and humanities as vital manifestations of an active life of the mind and spirit, and to encourage faculty research and other professional work concerned with the conditions and problems of public life that affect the future of democratic societies and politics at home and around the world;
 SOCIAL WELL-BEING: to contribute through the discovery, dissemination, and application of knowledge to the economic and social well-being of communities locally, regionally, nationally and internationally;
 TRUSTED VOICE: to provide citizens and leaders with dependable knowledge and reliable information for reaching responsible public judgments and decisions, and so to serve as a trusted voice in public debates over controversial issues;
 PUBLIC SPACES: to provide accessible sites and intellectual leadership for public deliberation about the meaning and importance of civic values and civic participation in the face of increasing globalization, corporatization and civic disengagement;
 COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP: to collaborate with diverse groups, organizations, institutions, and communities as mutually helpful partners in furthering shared democratic purposes;
 SELF-GOVERNANCE: to maintain the universitys collegial self-governance and autonomy from special interests as necessary for the accomplishment of our public purposes;
 PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY: to remain accountable for serving well the people of Minnesota by pursuing actively the full range of the universitys public purposes.