November 15, 2017
Office of the Provost and CECD announce the engagement benchmarking tool
Kansas State University has a long history of engaging Kansas' citizens and communities, which is fundamental to work at K-State. Engagement is in K-State's mission statement. It is one of the important theme areas of K-State 2025, and our engagement work has been critical to achieving the Engaged University designation from the Carnegie Foundation in 2010 and being re-accredited by the Higher Learning Commission in 2012.
In order to continue to understand the breadth and significance of campus engagement and to be able to report out our engaged work, the Office of the Provost and Center for Engagement and Community Development will begin administering the Engagement Benchmarking Tool on Nov. 29. The tool is an online survey of faculty and academic staff regarding their scholarly outreach and engagement. It will be emailed directly to faculty, on-campus Extension specialists and selected unclassified staff. The survey will remain open until Feb. 2, 2018.
A PDF version of the benchmarking survey is available to help K-Staters prepare, examine and organize supporting materials to complete the online tool.
Engagement is a collaborative form of research, teaching or service between university and community stakeholders that results in scholarly activity and community benefit about a public issue. An individual's scholarly work must connect with citizens, communities and/or organizations outside the academy with the direct goal of improving lives of those living or working in those communities. Engagement work from the university directly benefits external audiences. Through engagement, K-State endeavors to fulfill its historic land-grant mission.
The 2017 Engagement Benchmarking Tool is particularly important as this will be the last campus survey data point before K-State completes and submits its application for the Carnegie Foundation's Engaged University re-classification. Data collected through the K-State Engagement Benchmarking Tool also helps demonstrate the university’s collective commitment of time, scholarly resources, and research discoveries for the direct benefit of citizens, communities, and organizations in Kansas, the nation, and the world. Engagement Benchmarking Tool results can help colleges and departments chart their progress toward Vision 2025 engagement, Extension, service and outreach goals. Results from the Engagement Benchmarking Tool also will assist K-State in communicating to parents, students, legislators and citizen leaders the impact the university is having in areas of economic development, public health, civic engagement, food security, sustainability, innovation, arts and culture.
Questions regarding the Engagement Benchmarking Tool can be directed to the Center for Engagement and Community Development at cecd@k-state.edu or 785-532-6868.