Setting an Agenda: The Role of Community-Engaged Scholarship and Practice in Liberal Arts Colleges

The Great Lakes Colleges Association (www.glca.org) recently organized a convening of the Opening Doors of Dialogue Program, a Mellon Foundation funded initiative. The focus of that convening was on bringing together campus and community leaders across the GLCA engaged in and committed to community-engaged partnerships in their respective communities. Lessons learned, as well as associated opportunities and challenges, were shared. As scholar-practitioners, our role was to help identify common themes and trends across the partnerships and conversations, and to help set an agenda about the role of community-engaged partnerships in liberal arts colleges. The focus of this manuscript is on those trends and agenda setting considerations.