Reframing University Continuing Education’s Role in Community Engagement

Abstract

In Canada, a growing interest within higher education in community engagement practices is evidenced through the establishment of national networks, funding opportunities for community-university research partnerships, and the development of specially designated centres on university campuses. However, based on the literature in continuing education, the role of university continuing education (UCE) units in supporting community engagement is not clear. Many UCE units have been involved and continue to be involved in developing and implementing various types of community engagement activities, yet the work of these units is not widely recognized within the university and the community as contributing substantially to the social purpose mission of the institution. The pressures and tensions relating to balancing the social and economic goals of the UCE unit may be influencing the role of UCE in community engagement. Strategies identified in this article that could assist UCE in embedding community engagement within the practice and in reframing the focus of UCE include the development of a community engagement framework and measurement tools that assess outcomes leading to positive social change.

University Continuing Education in Canada

“…UCE units are being expected to provide for ever more diverse and demanding learner populations while conventional university curricula, calendars and services remain relatively unchanged and arguably 22 Hall (2009);McRae (2012). UCE units are being expected to provide for ever more diverse and demanding learner populations while conventional university curricula, calendars and services remain relatively unchanged and arguably 22 Hall (2009);McRae (2012).…”

Academic interaction with social partners in the case from the University of Limpopo

“…Although community engagement is an integral, mandated aspect of all HEIs (including UL), the Council for Higher Education does not prescribe specific modes of engagement at an institutional level, enabling specific institutional contexts to shape the localised identity and nature of engaged scholarship (CHE, 2006). Policies from different HEIs demonstrate that there are similarities in the modes of structured and unstructured activities and identities of different HEIs (McRae, 2012;Hall, 2010;Westdijk, Koliba and Hamshaw, 2010). Generally, CE in most South African universities (including UL) takes the form of service learning, structured outreach -or volunteerism -and community centred research activities (Snyman, 2014;Nhamo, 2013;Schuetze, 2010;UL CE Policy, 2008).…”

Higher Education Administration, and Leadership: Current Assumptions, Responsibilities, and Considerations

“…First, educational leaders in the tertiary sector should seek to establish "engaged campus [es]" (McRae, 2012, p. 2) that connect with individuals and organizations in the communities they serve. Engagement may be manifested, for example, in the form of networking, service learning, policy development, and responsive programming (McRae, 2012). Second, a reasonable and defensible goal of higher education is to meet the needs of learners to access education and training in order to increase their success in the workplace (Adamuti-Trache & Schuetze, 2009).…”

“…Although revenue generation is a subset of academic entrepreneurship, it is sufficiently under-described in the educational leadership literature so as to merit attention on its own. Revenue generation in postsecondary institutions is a controversial topic and debates continue about the capacity of higher education, especially continuing education units, to fulfill their mandates to generate revenue while concurrently offering socially responsive programming (McRae, 2012). It is unlikely that there will be a quick resolution to the tensions between proponents of revenue generation and defenders of higher education as primarily or even exclusively government funded organizations.…”