This book is a companion guide to Campus Compact's successful
publication The Community Engagement Professional in Higher Education.
In the first text, Campus Compact Research Fellows - led by
award-winning scholar-practitioner Lina D. Dostilio - identified a core
of set of competencies needed by professionals charged with leading
community engaged work on college campuses. In this companion guide,
Dostilio teams up with Marshall Welch to build on the initial framework
by offering guidance for how a community engagement professional (CEP)
should conceptualize, understand, and develop their practice in each of
the original competency areas.
Over 10 chapters the authors address questions for those "brand new to
the role" and interested in how to start a community engagement unit or
center, or from people who are considering jobs doing the work on a
campus, or from individuals "are trying to navigate the political
environment on their campuses to expand and deepen their unit's reach."
The Guidebook offers a rich and deep dive, breaking down the essential
components of a professional's work. From mentoring faculty research,
leading campaigns to build civic engagement curriculum on campus, to
managing the staff who support community engagement units, Dostilio and
Welch tackle the breadth of the CEP's work by drawing on key resources
and their own decades of experience in the field. Throughout the book,
readers will encounter "Compass Points" that call for personal
reflection and engagement with the text. These interactive moments
combine with end-of-chapter questions to prompt thinking about a CEP's
critical commitments, to create a powerful and engaging toolkit that
will be essential for any person doing community and civic engagement
work on campus.
