Engaged Scholarship: Perspectives from Outside the University (Nash, Bilmes)

Authors: Linda Bilmes, Jennifer Nash

Engaged scholarship brings universities and external partners together to create knowledge for mutual benefit.  Together, faculty, students, and external partners define problems, undertake analysis, and share findings.  A defining characteristic of engaged scholarship is reciprocity—participants share benefits as well as costs.  This paper explores engaged scholarship as a growing part of the HKS curriculum.  More students are calling for engaged scholarship opportunities.  More faculty are offering engaged scholarship courses.  The school is developing resources to help faculty assume new, more externally focused roles.  To date, however, relatively little attention has been given to how the school’s growing interest in engaged scholarship is impacting external partners: mayors, department managers, city council members, and school district superintendents.  What does engaged scholarship require of them in terms of time and resources?  From their perspective, what are the costs and what are the benefits?  How might HKS better take their interests into account?