University of Tennessee at Knoxville
EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement

UT’s Office of Community Engagement & Outreach (OCEO) is charged with advancing campus-wide coordination for community engagement. OCEO reports directly to UT’s vice chancellor for research and engagement and is advised by a Carnegie Advisory Committee that includes members of the external community along with UT faculty, staff, students and administrators. OCEO’s director represents UT on the national boards of the APLU’s Council on Engagement and Outreach and the Engagement Scholarship Consortium. OCEO works closely with a number of other offices, including the dean of Extension, who co-chairs the Carnegie Advisory Committee and is an integral part of UT’s coordinating infrastructure for community engagement. An essential part of coordinating community engagement at UT is the deliberate establishment of interlacing communities and communities of practice that weave us together internally while connecting us to our external partners in a more coordinated way. Among these are the Chancellor’s Academic Outreach and Engagement Council, which includes faculty representation from all 11 colleges. Members work closely with the vice chancellor for research and engagement and the director of community engagement and outreach to develop policy, mentor faculty, serve on review committees, liaise with the Faculty Senate and continue their own engaged scholarship.

UT has incorporated numerous mechanisms to ensure the input and feedback of partners in the planning, assessment and improvement cycles at an institutional level. In addition to advisory boards at institutional and unit levels, mechanisms that systematically assess community perceptions of the campus-level mission and strategic plan for community engagement involve an array of tools that are often created and deployed at the unit or department level. We often find unit level mechanisms to be the most useful, as they work where relationships are the most direct. Seven of these mechanisms are included in this response. (1) UT’s Board of Trustees has a Research, Outreach and Economic Development Committee responsible for assessing programs. (2) A permanent Carnegie Community Engagement Advisory Committee consists of UT administrators, faculty, students and representatives of the external community. The committee uses a structured method for group brainstorming that includes problem identification, solution generation, and decision making, for ongoing assessment of community perceptions of UT’s engagement efforts. (3) Six hundred plus members of UT Extension’s 95 county advisory committees help develop programs, curricula, partnerships and resources for assessing and addressing community concerns. An award-winning, custom-built software program tracks Extension's needs and assessment efforts across Tennessee. It is being used as a model for ongoing development of assessment software for use on the rest of the UT campus. (4) Within UT’s Institute for Public Service, the Municipal Technical Advisory Service, County Technical Assistance Service, Center for Industrial Services and Law Enforcement Innovation Center each assess community perceptions through quarterly advisory board meetings and biennial community surveys. (5) The Center for Leadership and Service (CLS) annually surveys more than 100 partner organizations to determine perceptions of overall university engagement and efforts of individual students with whom they have worked. CLS’s collection of and response to these data are also valuable at an institutional level because these partners often engage with other units and colleges across campus. (6) UT’s service-learning courses formally identified by the “S” course designation in the course catalog and on student transcripts include a web-based process of assessing community perceptions as an integral part of course designation and evaluation. (7) UT’s new Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity holds listening sessions with diverse external communities to inform an inaugural set of programs and infrastructure. A session held in October 2013 with members of Knoxville’s Latino/Hispanic community focused on such questions as: “How is UT viewed in the Latino/Hispanic community?” “How is the UT community engaged with the Latino/Hispanic community?” and “How would you like to see UT engaged with the community?”

American Cancer Society American Heart Association- Greater Southeast Affiliate Arbor Terrace Assisted Living Beaumont Elementary School Beck Cultural Center Big Brothers Big Sisters Blount County Children’s Home Boys and Girls Clubs Bridge Refugee CAC Beardsley Community Farm CAC’s Office on Aging: Senior Nutrition Mobile Meals Program CAPP Coalition on America’s Poor Health and Poverty Caswell (Haslam) Catholic Charities of East TN Cerebral Palsy Center Children’s Center of Knoxville, Inc. City of Knoxville City of Knoxville- Urban Forestry Dogwood Elementary East TN Children’s Hospital Emerald Youth Foundation ETTAC (Eat Tennessee Technology Access Center) Family Crisis Center FISH Florence Crittenton Agency Fort Sanders Educational Development Center Fountain City Elementary School Friends of Literacy Fulton High School Gibbs High School Goodwill Habitat for Humanity Habitat Thrift Store Harmony Family Center Haven House Inc. Head Start Helen Ross McNabb Center Hope Central Hope Resource Center Horse Haven Humane Society of the TN Valley Ijams Nature Center Interfaith Health Clinic J.T. O’Conner Center Kay Senior Care Center Keep Knoxville Beautiful Kingston Pike – Sequoyah Hills Neighborhood Association Knox Area Rescue Ministries (KARM) Knox County Health Department Knoxville Botanical Garden & Children’s Garden Knoxville College Knoxville Family Justice Center Knoxville Re-Animation Coalition and the College of Architecture and Design Knoxville Urban League Knoxville Zoo Ladies of Charity Lost Sheep Ministries Love Kitchen Mane Support Manor House Assisted Living Maynard Elementary Metropolitan Drug Commission Montgomery Village Ministry North Haven Healthcare Center Pace Setters Youth Outreach Phyllis Wheatly YWCA Pond Gap Community School Project GRAD Random Acts of Flowers Remote Area Medical Ronald McDonald House Salvation Army (Knox Area Command) Sarah Moore Green Elementary Second Harvest Food Bank SEEED (Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development) Shannondale Health Care Center Sherrill Hills Retirement Community South Knoxville Elementary Special Olympics of Greater Knox Sunshine Industries Susan G. Komen for the Cure Thrive Lonsdale Vacant Lot Project Volunteer Fire Department of Seymour Water Angels Ministry Wesley House YMCA Young-Williams Animal Center

Partnership with Great Smokey Mountains National Park: partnership helps preserve & protect park for (and from) 20M annual visitors as well; ~1000 people come to the Park every year specifically to participate either in the Wildflower Pilgrimage or the Smoky Mountain Field School; UT provides both with registration infrastructure and UT faculty from many colleges and department serve as teaching staff. Biology in a Box: Provides grade appropriate exercises and reusable materials to Tennessee/regional classrooms; these materials reinforce math in biological contexts; teacher workshops (specifically for Tennessee urban public schools) within this program have contributed to professional development and interaction between different teaching disciplines. Knoxville Homeless Management Information System Program: In 2012, there were 9,388 active clients in Knox County, 4% more than 2011. KnoxHMIS data has shown that, contrary to common local belief, the majority (78%) do not arrive from elsewhere but come from the local area. KnoxHMIS's vast data set has led to better services delivery & outcomes reporting. The data suggest that Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing programs have been extremely successful in preventing homelessness for at risk individuals and families, and in quickly placing those who have become homeless back in permanent housing. Since 2009, an average of 91% of clients served are in permanent homes when they exit the programs. Community Full-Service Schools Program: Community Impact included the provision of health services to students and their families; mental health screenings; academic support for students and their families; and financial support for the families. At-risk urban students at five schools thus far are enabled to create long-term, mentoring relationships with UT students and faculty based on the three tenants of prevention, collaboration, and systems-level thinking.