The true value of Service-Learning is in the outcomes it produces in our students, faculty, staff, and community. The Center is continually engaged in a process of Institutional Assessment (in regard to the degree of engagement of the campus), course assessment (to guage the effectiveness and outcomes of individual service-learning courses and programs), and research (contibuiting to the body of literature on the effectiveness of service-learning, the institutionalization of civic engagement, and the outcomes in our students, faculty, staff, and community).

The purpose of the ongoing self-study is to evaluate the extent to which KVCC is meeting the Indicators of an Engaged Campus as proposed by the National Campus Compact. (Much of this information comes from the Campus Compact publication titled The Community's College: Indicators of Engagement at Two-Year Institutions.)

The 13 indicators of Engagement that we assess are defined as follows:

1. Mission and purpose explicely articulate a commitment to the public purpose of higher education.
2. Administration and academic leadership (president, trustees, provost) is in the forefront of institutional transformation that supports civic engagement.
3. Disciplines, departments, and interdisciplinary work have incorporated community-based education, allowing it to penetrate across disciplines and reach the institution's academic core.
4. Pedagogy and epistemology incorporate a community-based, public problem-solving approach to teaching and learning.
5. Faculty development opportunities are available for faculty to rettol their teaching and redesign their curricula to incorporate community-based activities and reflection on those activites within the context of the course.
6. Faculty roles and rewards, including promotion and tenure guidelines and review, reflect a reconsideration of scholarship that embraces a scholarship of engagement.
7. Enabling mechanisms are present in the form of visible and easily accessible structures (e.g., centers, offices) on campus to assist faculty with community-based teaching and to broker community partnerships.
8. Internal resource allocation is adequate for establishing, enhancing, and deepening community-based work on campus--for faculty, students, and programs that involve community partners.
9. Community voice deepens the role of community partners in contributing to community-based education and shaping outcomes that benefit the community.
10. External resource allocation is made available for community partners to create richer learning environments for students and for community-building efforts in local neighborhoods.
11. Integrated and complementary engagement activities weave together student service, service-learning, and other community engagement activities on campus.
12. Forums for fostering public dialogues are created that include multiple stakeholders in public problem-solving.
13. Student voice is cultivated in a way that recognizes students as key partners in their own education and civic development and supports their efforts to act on issues important to themselves and their peers.

The self-study documents activities and efforts across the campus that indicate progress toward these standards in an effort to cultivate, develop, promote, and support KVCC as an "Engaged Campus".

For a summary of the assessment tool being used to evaluate our degree of engagement (including the indicators above, core questions, specific language being assessed, and assessment questions) review our Reports