Engaged Scholarship
Throughout the University, faculty and students are participating in a new type of community engagement: one that presents a collaboration between higher education institutions and their larger communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.

This Dynamic Partnership Map presents an at-a-glance overview of current engaged scholarship efforts.* It also offers the community and faculty an opportunity to learn about other projects in the hopes that they will discover what is possible with collaboration. The projects featured in this map adhere to the principles of engaged scholarship by:

• Involving academic projects that engage faculty members and students in a sustained manner with community groups

• Connecting university outreach with community organizational goals

• Furthering productive relationships between the university and the community

• Resulting in need-inspired basic and applied research

• Delivering excellence in engaged scholarship through such products as peer-reviewed publications, peer-reviewed collaborative reports, and external funding

Engaged scholarship requires a new way of thinking about working in our community. We have moved beyond thinking about the city as a laboratory and our efforts as merely outreach, extension and service. Engaged scholarship, when done effectively, strengthens the community and the University.

The University reinforces the importance of this new type of service learning in its mission statement: "The University of Memphis is a learner-centered metropolitan research university providing high quality educational experiences while pursuing new knowledge through research, artistic expression, and interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship."

*We are still compiling a complete list of engaged scholarship efforts. If you have a project, please contact us at suapp@memphis.edu.