Community Engagement

For many, graduate school can feel intense. You find yourself immersed in specialized research, taking notes, reading, writing articles and reports, and of course, studying. As your graduate career progresses, you will probably spend even more time in the lab or library, glued to your laptop. You often see less of your peers at this stage, too, because your coursework has ended and you’re in the final push to finish your thesis or doctoral dissertation. 

Considering all this time spent in solo cogitation, it’s probably not surprising that a significant percentage of graduate students report feeling isolated at some point during their graduate careers.^[1] One proven strategy to offset that feeling is to build relationships with different communities inside and outside your discipline. Getting involved in a service learning project or volunteering your time and talents to help the local community can provide a much-needed breather from coursework. But more importantly, it’s a practice that can deliver multiple health, academic, and career benefits. 

In graduate school, community engagement refers to the reciprocal relationship between disciplinary knowledge or ideas and public concerns.^[2] This critical exchange allows you to ground your scholarship in real-world issues, through (for example) teaching, serving on a committee that addresses a social issue, participating in outreach and civic programs, or assisting public agencies and nonprofits. Essentially, community engagement helps you connect theory to practice. 

You might be wondering: Who has the time for anything extra in graduate school? It’s an understandable question. Consider talking to your advisor and mentors about your interest. They may have ideas about projects you’d find rewarding and how to fit them into your schedule. It might take some adjustments, but chances are you can find the time if you decide to prioritize this practice. And here are five compelling reasons why you should. 
 

1. Expands your career and support networks. Efforts you make now to develop a wide, supportive community can benefit you in ways you may not even perceive until months or years into the future. The people you meet through community engagement could at some point become good friends, project collaborators, writers of recommendation letters, work colleagues, clients, or even bosses.  It’s a smart practice to cast your net wide and increase your opportunities to create those important connections.
2. Facilitates interdisciplinary learning. If you’re interested in projects outside of your department, consider exploring interdisciplinary initiatives at WMU. Graduate students face a risk of becoming socialized solely within their particular discipline and unit, which can lead to siloing. Silos within the university tend to create a culture of isolation and reduce opportunities for innovation. For these reasons, interdisciplinary training has become an important new direction in graduate education.^[1]
3. Creates academic opportunities. Research shows that most graduate students view community engagement as unrelated to scholarship.^[2] That’s unfortunate because it demonstrates a lost opportunity. When you focus exclusively on one highly specialized area of research, you can lose sight of practical ways your knowledge can serve a meaningful—and immediate—public purpose.
4. As you plan your academic path, seek opportunities to acquire knowledge not only through WMU faculty experts but by creating it within a community. The empirical knowledge you gain from the experience can lead to new insights about your field and the profession as a whole. Moreover, by participating in that process, YOU become the expert, having accrued a unique learning experience that you can share with your colleagues—perhaps by presenting at a conference or writing a journal article. 
5. Promotes professionalization. One important goal of graduate school is to help students develop a pre-professional identity (PPI). Students form a PPI by understanding and connecting to the skills, qualities, culture, and ideology of their intended vocation. This process occurs gradually, as you build relationships with communities within your unit and associations outside of it. 
   
   The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) conducted research that supports this approach as an effective means of preparing future faculty. In a study involving 44 universities nationwide, CID project leaders found that doctoral students benefit by becoming “stewards of their discipline,” experienced at transforming and communicating knowledge both in and outside the university.^[3] 
   
   By applying your disciplinary knowledge in different settings or “communities of practice,” you learn to think of yourself as a rising professional. That self-identification can boost your confidence in job interviews and group settings like conferences, where you need to socialize with other members of your profession. 
   
   Enhances employment outcomes. Research has also increasingly linked pre-professional identity to graduate employability,^[4] and it’s easy to understand why. Engaging in community service projects (which helps develop PPI) gives you the kind of experience employers value, including the ability to work in groups on real-life problems, show leadership skills, and develop and implement initiatives.
    

This list of potential opportunities might give you some ideas. Look it over to see if anything here interests you, then talk to your advisor, mentors, and other department faculty. They may have additional ideas for you, as well as recommendations about how to fit a project into your schedule. 

• WMU Service Learning. Service learning projects can be incorporated into a course by participating faculty. Individual volunteer opportunities are also available. See ExperienceWMU for details and contact Shawn Tenney with questions. 
• Community Partnerships. WMU is dedicated to building ties with businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies. Those relationships can help you by creating opportunities to apply your skills and knowledge in meaningful ways. This link takes you to a volunteer portal where you can get started. Contact Lisa Garcia with questions. 
• WMU Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). OLLI allows you to build your pedagogical experience while engaging with the Kalamazoo community. Visit the OLLI site for details about how you can design and teach a course of your choosing or get involved in other community outreach projects. 
• WMU Signature. With this customizable program, students can design a unique experience that applies their scholarship to real-world issues. Watch several sample videos for ideas and contact Evan Heiser with questions.  
• WMU Center for Community Engagement. Learn more about advocacy initiatives, group service projects, and other volunteer opportunities within the Kalamazoo community.