Toward academically based community scholarship: Ideals, realities, and future needs

Service to the community, a recent interest in higher education, poses numerous challenges and questions including: How can public colleges and universities fulfill their responsibilities to their surrounding communities? In doing so, how do formal responsibilities of faculty and students change? How do courses and programs change? What are the benchmarks or progress indicators for success? What are the facilitators, constraints, and barriers for this type of orientation? We explore these questions in the ensuing analysis. We begin with indices of need and an accompanying rationale. Then we share the results of a faculty focus group's problem-solving in relation to these kinds of questions. We conclude by identifying future needs and directions.