The Fall 2019 issue of the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (MJCSL) will feature a special section on Community Impacts of Engaged Research, Teaching and Practice, guest edited by Charles Z. Levkoe (Lakehead University), Karen Schwartz (Carleton University), Peter Andrée (Carleton University) and Nadine Changfoot (Trent University).
The MJCSL is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal with faculty and administrator readers all over the world. It publishes articles on research, theory, pedagogy, and other issues pertinent to (a) curriculum-based service-learning, (b) campus-community partnerships, (c) scholarship of engagement, and (d) scholarship on engagement.
COMMUNITY FIRST: IMPACTS OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Community-campus engagement (CCE) has become a powerful tool for teaching and research on university and college campuses around the world. Community-based organizations have also recognized the value of partnering with faculty, students, and campus staff as a way to increase capacity, broaden reach, and accomplish goals. Acknowledging the opportunities and challenges of partnership-based work, researchers and community-based practitioners have called for ‘community-first’ approaches that focus on generating meaningful impacts for community-based partners through collaboration (Andrée et al., 2014; Butcher et al., 2011; Cronley et al. 2015; Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2000). This call was inspired by the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) research project based at Carleton University in Ottawa (https://carleton.ca/communityfirst/). CFICE, a partnership among academics and community groups across Canada established in 2012, is a collaborative action research project that aims to better understand the ways that community-campus partnerships can be designed and implemented to maximize the value for communities and community-based organizations.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
For this special section, we seek research, pedagogy, and other articles that explore community first approaches to community-engaged research, teaching, and practice work, and how they can have greater community impact. We especially welcome articles that include and/or incorporate the perspectives and voices of non-academic partners. The editors invite abstracts for articles and rigorous case studies from academics, educators, and researchers that: (a) report research studies focused on community outcomes/impacts, (b) report on, comment on, and/or imagine a variety of ways of defining and measuring community impacts and valuation of CCE; (c) propose new approaches to research, teaching, and practice (in relation to historical and contemporary models, methods, processes, and ethos) intended to share power, resources, and control in CCE partnerships; (d) offer critical insights into the role of CCE and social movements as well as community-based (e.g., ‘collective impact’) processes; (e) provide perspectives on CCE cases that offer guidance to student, faculty, administrative staff, and community partners; or (f) explore innovative university, community, and funder policies and frameworks designed to encourage impactful CCE research, teaching, and practice.
We are particularly interested in contributions that build on the foundations of social justice and ecological sustainability and bring creativity, imagination, and experimentation. Articles should also be rooted in embodied, experiential modes of making, thinking, learning, and doing; oriented toward current and future cultural and social conditions; and concerned with ways that these can be integrated into developing modes of research, teaching, and practice.
The first step in the submission process is to submit a one-page abstract/précis by January 18, 2019 that adequately conveys the focus/plan for the article and includes the author(s)’ contact information, including email address. Invitations to submit an article will be made by email in early January, with invited articles due April 30, 2019.
Please consult general MJCSL submission guidelines at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mjcslg?page=submissions
Submissions and questions about the special issue may be directed to Charles Z. Levkoe (clevkoe@lakeheadu.ca) and Nadine Changfoot (nadinechangfoot@trentu.ca).
Reviewing recent past issues of the MJCSL to see the kinds of articles published in this journal will better position the prospective article submitter to receive a favorable reply to their abstract submission.
Thank you.
Charles Z. Levkoe
Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Food Systems
Assistant Professor, Health Sciences
Lakehead University
Nadine Changfoot
Associate Professor
Department of Political Studies
Trent University
Karen Schwartz
Associate Professor
Interim Associate Vice President (Research and International)
Carleton University
Peter Andrée
Associate Professor and Associate Chair
Department of Political Science
Carleton University
In partnership with:
Neeraja Aravamudan, Mary Jo Callan, Cecilia Morales, and Nick Tobier
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning Editorial Team
Edward Ginsberg Center at the University of Michigan
References
Andrée, P., Chapman, D., Hawkins, L., Kneen, C., Muehlberger, C., Nelson, C., et al. (2014). Building effective relationships for community-engaged scholarship in Canadian Food Studies. Canadian Food Studies / La Revue Canadienne Des Études Sur L’alimentation, 1(1), 27-27.
Butcher, J., Bezzina, M., & Moran, W. (2011). Transformational partnerships: A new agenda for higher education. Innovative Higher Education, 36(1), 29-40.
Cronley, C., Madden, E., & Davis, J.B. (2015). Making service-learning partnerships work: Listening and responding to community partners. Journal of Community Practice, 23(2), 274-289.
Ward, K., & Wolf-Wendel, L. (2000). Community-centered service learning: Moving from doing for to doing with. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(5), 767-780.