Inclusive Assessment: Toward a Socially-Just Methodology for Measuring Institution-Wide Engagement

Abstract

Institutions are increasingly being called upon to collect large amounts of data to demonstrate community impact. At institutions with strong and wide-reaching public engagement/service missions, this expectation is even greater – both for quality improvement and for demonstrating regional transformation. Despite these expectations, the decentralized culture of many campuses and lack of external incentives for individual faculty and departments can present significant barriers to telling a complete, representative, institutional story of engagement. This article explores the efforts of one campus to develop an inclusive assessment methodology in order to meet multifaceted institutional needs and navigate challenges. We take into account the particular dynamics of a specific campus culture to develop a process that is unique to the needs and particularities of our institution. At the same time, we hope that this methodology will demonstrate transferability to other institutions.