The Elective Classification For Community Engagement

Alan Bloomgarden

Contact:
abloomga@gmail.com

Alan Bloomgarden serves as Director of Foundation & Government Grants at Holyoke Community College. Alan is a creative catalyst for collective impact partnerships for social change among community organizations, education institutions, non-profit/public/private agencies and programs in western Massachusetts. He has worked for over 25 years in higher education and has served in leadership capacities in the community engagement field and on nonprofit organization boards.

Alan has undertaken consulting work with UMass Boston and Washington and Lee University for Carnegie Community Engagement Classification applications, and has collaborated with Dr. John Saltmarsh, Dr. KerryAnn O’Meara, and Erin O’Keefe on institutional and community engagement center/program reviews and strategic planning at Fairfield University, Suffolk University, Washington and Lee University, Wofford College, and Trinity College. He has provided professional development and consulting to additional colleges and universities, focusing on campus-community partnerships and impacts, faculty development/tenure and promotion policies, and strategies to link community-engaged learning, leadership development, DEI priorities, and work/career preparation and success strategies for first generation, low income and underrepresented students and faculty. He has presented on these linkages to the Lumina Foundation and at professional gatherings, and has particular expertise in liberal arts college approaches to community engagement,

After a decade as Director of Faculty Grants & Government/Community Relations at Smith College, Alan completed an award-winning doctoral dissertation on community engagement as he became Mount Holyoke College’s first full-time Director of Community Engagement. There, he led dramatic growth and enhancement of the college’s Community-Based Learning program between 2008 and 2019. This positioned Mount Holyoke to attain the Carnegie Foundation’s classification as a Community-Engaged Institution in 2015 after an unsuccessful application in 2010. Mount Holyoke’s Community Fellows student leadership curriculum, which he developed and led, went on to receive recognition by the national Excelencía in Education: What Works for Latino Education organization. In 2020, Elms College appointed Alan as the inaugural Director of Experiential Learning, to launch an institution-wide initiative in community-engaged learning.

Now at Holyoke Community College, Alan facilitates partnerships among college programs and staff, students, faculty, community organizations and coalitions, schools and public agencies to advance community health and economic development, workforce readiness and 2-to-4 year transfer pathways, and initiatives advancing access, equity, mobility, and justice in Holyoke, Springfield, and the region. He has a doctorate in Educational Leadership from UMass Amherst, an MPhil in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, and a B.A. in International Relations from Bucknell University. Alan is a published author, presenter, facilitator, and consultant, and has served since 2020 as an editorial leader for the International Journal for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement.

Dr. Alexander Pope IV (Sandy)

Dr. Alexander Pope IV (Sandy) spent nine years as a social studies teacher in Austin, Texas and New York City. Today he’s an associate professor of education at Salisbury University, teaching courses on social studies methods and spending time in local schools. He is also Director of the Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, leading a range of programs that help bridge the imaginary gaps between campus and community.

An Us@250 Fellow with New America, Dr. Pope has earned recognitions including the Outstanding Professional at a Social Studies Organization from the Maryland Council for Social Studies, Barbara Burch Award for Faculty Leadership in Civic Engagement from AASC&U, We the People Excellence in Civic Learning and Community Engagement Award from the American Democracy Project, and Distinguished Faculty Award from Salisbury University. His first book, Becoming a Holocaust Educator: Purposeful Pedagogy through Inquiry, is available from TC Press.

Dr. Pope has a range of relevant experience for your Engaged Campus classification. He led Salisbury University’s successful Carnegie Engaged Campus application in 2019, will do the same for the campus reapplication effort in the 2026 cycle, and has chaired campus working groups for two strategic planning and Middle States accreditation cycles. He’s the co-chair of the University System of Maryland’s Civic Education and Community Engagement Council. He’ll be excited to help your campus better tell its story of community engagement.

Amber Cameron

Contact:
acameron@umn.edu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amber-cameron-74236576/

Amber Cameron has been in the community engagement field since 2004, spending the last decade supporting the University of Minnesota system. Amber serves as the Director of Public Engagement Initiatives for the University’s five campuses, facilitating the institutionalization of community engagement by incorporating public engagement goals and activities into other key university initiatives.

One of Amber’s primary responsibilities is shepherding the UMN’s submissions for the Carnegie Foundation Elective Classification for Community Engagement. In 2015, Amber served as the lead project manager for the University of Minnesota Twin Cities’ reclassification process. Most recently, as part of the University of Minnesota’s systemwide strategic plan, Amber led three UMN campuses and their teams–Crookston (baccalaureate), Duluth (master’s university), and Rochester (four-year health profession school)–in first time applications. All campuses were successful and received the 2024 classification, resulting in the UMN becoming the first higher education system in the United States with all campuses classified. In addition, Amber served as a reviewer for the 2024 application process.

Amber serves on the executive committee for the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, is a member of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement’s Special Programming Committee, and served as host for 2023 Campus Compact’s The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN) meeting.

Before joining the UMN’s Office for Public Engagement, Amber served as the Associate Director in Carleton College’s community engagement office. Amber holds a B.A. in African/African-American Studies from Carleton College and a M.A. in Non-Profit/NGO Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.

Brian Gogan

Contact:
brian.gogan@wmich.edu

Dr. Brian Gogan successfully led Western Michigan University’s efforts to reclassify as a Carnegie Community Engaged Campus in 2020. As part of these efforts, Gogan chaired two 20+member teams and was lead author of WMU’s reclassification application, which documented over 1.34 million hours of community-engagement initiatives with more than 1,500 community organizations.

Gogan, who is an Associate Professor of English, directs WMU’s first-year writing program and regularly teaches professional writing courses with service-learning components. Gogan holds a B.A. in English from Xavier University, a M.A. in British and American Literature from Marquette University, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing from Virginia Tech.

Brian Kurisky

Contact:
bkurisky@gmail.com

Dr. Brian Kurisky serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Collaborative Education in the Division of Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement on Rutgers University’s main campus in New Brunswick. In this position, Brian oversees co-curricular engagement, community engagement connections, and the Bonner Leaders program on the campus.  He also aids Academic Affairs in embedding engagement in course curriculum.

Prior to this position, Brian served as the inaugural Executive Director for Wesleyan Engaged: Civic Engagement and Service Learning at Virginia Wesleyan University. While in this position, he started the Bonner Leaders program, established an engagement tracking system, increased course engagement, and led the institution to receive the 2020 Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement. He also served as the VWU Representative to the Volunteer Hampton Roads Board and as a SACS-COC evaluator.

Dr. Kurisky has a PhD in Higher Education Leadership from Old Dominion University, where his dissertation examined educational programs for alumni who serve as advisors to social organizations to determine if such programs were educating these advisors in helping current undergraduate students. During his graduate studies, Brian served as a graduate researcher for the Vice Provost for Planning and Institutional Effectiveness in the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment working on Old Dominion University’s SACS-COC 2012 reaccreditation process.

Since obtaining his doctorate, Dr. Kurisky has served as a consultant to Social Greek Lettered Fraternities regarding their educational programs for alumni volunteers and as a SACS-COC consultant in reviewing institutions’ Five-Year and Reaccreditation reports to provide feedback prior to submission.

Cathy Avila-Linn

Contact:
cathy.avilalinn@gmail.com
Website

Cathy Avila-Linn is an accomplished consultant, facilitator, and leadership coach. She brings to this role over 20 years of experience in the field of community engagement and over 15 years of experience designing and facilitating strategic planning processes and program reviews. Cathy can support your institution’s self-assessment process by:

• Designing a collaborative, participatory process that engages your campus team, providing guidance, consultation, and pacing throughout;
• Advising campus leadership on developing the assessment team by providing input on the roles and responsibilities of team members;
• Facilitating workshops on specific sections of the application framework;
• Sharing resources that support data collection, reflection, discussion, learning, and action;
• Supporting your team in collecting, synthesizing, and prioritizing large amounts of ideas, information, goals, and strategies in support of a larger vision;
• Aiding  the creation of a system to track and promote decisions and evidence-based practices identified or created throughout the process;
• Working with your team to analyze input from stakeholders and identify areas for growth, action,  and institutional transformation;
• Assisting team members in the preparation of application narratives by providing guidance, samples, and feedback; or
• Guiding your team in post-assessment reflection, examination, and action planning.

Rooted in social justice, Cathy actively models participatory facilitation practices designed to promote inclusive environments which respect and appreciate multiple intelligences, diverse backgrounds, and lifestyles. Cathy’s clients describe her as warm, open, and insightful. Her work style exemplifies intention, transparency, collaboration, and inclusivity.

Christy Kayser

Contact:
christy.kayser@usm.edu

Christy Kayser serves as director of the Center for Community Engagement at The University of Southern Mississippi, where her office oversees service-learning and other mutually beneficial initiatives related to community-engaged teaching, learning, and research. She has worked with campus-community partnerships in higher education for nearly 14 years, starting with Louisiana State University’s service-learning office in 2008 before transitioning in 2014 to her current role. She has twice facilitated successful applications for the Carnegie Foundation’s Elective Community Engagement Classification, once as a first-time applicant at LSU and again for the reclassification at USM in 2020.

Kayser’s expertise includes working with and coordinating both curricular and co-curricular service at public, four-year, doctoral Research 1 institutions in the South. She possesses unique insight into challenges faced by institutions of different size (LSU= 30K+, USM= 13K) with different levels of institutionalized community engagement and varying scopes of community engagement. Her knowledge base includes land, sea, and space grant institutions as well as regional campuses. Areas of interest include media communications, institutional infrastructure, campus-community partnerships, leadership through civic engagement, and data tracking.

Cindy Vincent

Contact:
cindy.vincent@salemstate.edu
LinkedIn
Website

Cindy Vincent, Ph.D. is associate professor of Media and Communication at Salem State University in Massachusetts. Her research focuses on critically engaged civic learning, civic media engagement within historically marginalized populations, and the use of dissent in digital democracy for negotiation of political power and social change. Her work has appeared in Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, The Journal of Alternative and Community Media, and The International Journal of Game-Based Learning. She recently published the co-edited volume Anti-racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices (Stylus), which received the 2023 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award from the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. She is a founding steering member of the New England Equity & Engagement Consortium and a 2023-24 Campus Compact Equity & Engagement Fellow.

Dennis McCunney

Contact:
mccunneyw@ecu.edu
LinkedIn

Dennis McCunney, Ph.D. serves as director of intercultural affairs at East Carolina University and adjunct faculty member in political science. He started at ECU in 2012 as director of the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center where he grew the center’s scope to include social justice as an integrated part of leadership development and civic engagement. Dr. McCunney served on ECU’s Carnegie Classification team in 2015.

He has presented his research in various arenas, including the Global Service-Learning Summit, Leadership Educators Institute, and the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. Recent publications include articles in AAC&U’s Diversity & Democracy (special issue on undergraduate public health), Metropolitan Universities Journal and Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education.

He earned his doctorate in higher education administration from Morgan State University, and his dissertation focus was on the formation of student culture around civic engagement, leadership, and activism.

His professional and research interests include public service and leadership development, organizational development, intercultural / global learning, and campus-community partnerships. He serves on the leadership teams for the NASPA Spirituality and Religion KC and the Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative.

Education:

• Morgan State University, Ph.D., Higher Education Administration
• Boston College, M.Div.
• Loyola University Maryland, B.A., Philosophy and Biology

Areas of Expertise:

• Connections between leadership, civic engagement, and intercultural learning
• Regional public higher education
• Faith-based institutions
• Community-engaged global learning

Jessica Mann

Contact:
jmannconsultingllc@gmail.com
Website

Jess Mann, Ph.D., is an experienced higher education professional, organizational consultant, and facilitator. She currently serves as Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In this role, she is responsible for determining the University’s worldwide engagement strategy, managing a team of compassionate individuals who engage students, faculty, staff, community partners, government officials, and citizens to collaborate in teaching, research, and service initiatives that improve outcomes for communities and campus constituents.

Through her own administrative roles as well as her consulting work, Jess has vast experience in supporting institutions in achieving and retaining the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement–most recently leading efforts to support Duquesne in receiving its third designation. She also supports institutions in their efforts to further institutionalize community engagement, strategically structure unit plans and objectives to achieve their engagement goals, assess programs and initiatives regarding mission alignment and transformative capacity, and create policies and procedures to ensure efficient, responsible, and inclusive practice.

Jess earned her Ph.D. in Administration and Policy Studies from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education, her M.A. from Duquesne University in Integrated Marketing Communications, and her B.A. in Media & Professional Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. She is also a published author, presenter, and facilitator, serving as a resource and support to the field through her various leadership roles, such as Senior Co-Editor of the International Journal for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement, Editor-in-Chief of the Tropman Report, Keynote Speaker for PCCE annual conference, and Community of Practice moderator.

Joi Phillips

Contact:
jnphillips@admin.fsu.edu

Dr. Joi N. Phillips currently serves as the director for the Center for Leadership & Service (the center) at Florida State University. Dr. Phillips got her start at the center as a graduate assistant at the then-Center for Civic Education and Service. After completing her master’s degree, Dr. Phillips became the coordinator for the center’s America Reads Mentoring Program, recruiting, training, and placing college students as mentors to youth in the local and surrounding school systems and community centers. Eventually any community focused requests that came through the center that focused on youth ages two through high school completion became a part of Dr. Phillips’ purview. This included everything from AmeriCorps programs and other grant-based programs to traditional and non-traditional mentoring and tutoring programs.

Dr. Phillips has served on a variety of task forces and has presented at multiple conferences, across the local community and nationally, related to mentoring, community engagement, service learning and volunteering. During the 2010 Carnegie classification cycle, Dr. Phillips supported her campus’s successful reclassification application and served as a consultant for the 2024 cycle for a successful reclassification application.

Dr. Phillips has a PhD in Education Policy and Evaluation and a M.S. in Higher Education Student Affairs with a minor in Education Policy from Florida State University. She holds her B.S. in Health Science Education with a concentration in Community Health from the University of Florida.

Julia Vargas

Contact:
Julia.Vargas@rockhurst.edu

Dr. Julia Vargas serves as the Director for the Center for Service Learning for Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri. In this position, she connects Rockhurst faculty and students to the community through service-learning courses and campus-wide community service programs.  Prior to her current position, Julia worked for 12 years in the nonprofit sector, often as the community partner for service-learning courses. Julia has led Rockhurst University through the Carnegie Community Engagement Elective Classification in 2010 and 2020.  She has worked with small/ medium sized colleges and universities to implement service-learning programs. Areas of expertise include: service-learning, program development, strategic planning, community engagement, partnerships and program evaluation.

Justin Sipes

Contact:
justin.m.sipes@gmail.com

Dr. Justin Sipes is the Inaugural Director of the Office of Experiential Learning at the University of North Florida (UNF). In this role, he leads the centralization of tracking and assessment of Experiential Learning activities and oversees the Experiential Learning Transcript for the University. Justin also works collaboratively to increase capacity and quality of Experiential Learning activities through professional development of faculty and staff.

Prior to this role, Justin served in multiple roles with the Center for Community-Based Learning at UNF, starting as co-curricular community engagement coordinator and eventually director. As Director, he collaborated with others throughout the institution to enhance the breadth and depth of community engagement activities, monitored progress on community engagement efforts, and prepared the campus for its Carnegie Elective Community Engagement Classification process; a distinction it received in 2010 and 2020.

Justin has his doctorate in Educational Leadership with a focus on higher education. His dissertation was on the pre-college expectations of first-generation college students. He has almost two decades of experience in higher education in both academic and student affairs (most notably, community engagement, faculty/staff development, and assessment). Much of his work experience is in public higher education, particularly at regional comprehensive institutions.

Within the community engagement realm, Justin has been a co-facilitator of multiple Campus Compact communities of practice and was the UNF campus lead for the IARSLCE Alliance. In addition, he was an executive committee member and assessment chair of the Gulf-South Summit, a regional community engagement and a service-learning organization.

Liz Byron

Contact:
etodd@bellarmine.edu 

Dr. Liz Byron is the Executive Director of Experiential Learning and Community Engagement at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. Liz has a Master’s degree in History, a Master’s degree in Teaching, and a PhD in Leadership in Higher Education with an emphasis on Social Change. Liz taught service learning courses in United States History, Civics, and Human Geography for 7 years in the K-12 public school system before finishing her doctorate and transitioning into higher education. Bellarmine asked Liz to help establish the inaugural Center for Community Engagement in 2020. Liz chaired the President’s Task Force on Community Engagement from 2021-2023. Liz successfully led Bellarmine in the 2024 Carnegie application to be recognized as a newly classified institution. From her leadership of the university self-study for community engagement in 2019 to the application submission in 2023, Liz has forged partnerships inside and outside of the university to actualize Bellarmine’s strategic commitment to engage in mutually beneficial partnerships with the local community.

To institutionalize community engagement, Liz has led efforts on faculty professional development, co-curricular programming for K-12 tutoring, Alternative Spring Break service trips, student basic needs resource centers, community-engaged course designation, rank and tenure policy changes to include community engagement, and more. Liz has successfully obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funding to support these sustained community-centered efforts.

Liz has participated in numerous communities of practice for Carnegie Classification both at the state and national level and currently supports universities in Kentucky with their ongoing Carnegie applications. She is excited to support other campuses in the incredible journey of institutionalizing community engagement. She understands the process inside and out as she has been a part of the journey for five years and authored the Bellarmine application this past year.

Patrick Green

Contact:
pgreen@luc.edu

Patrick M. Green, EdD is the Executive Director of the Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship (CELTS), and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Loyola University Chicago. He teaches experiential learning courses, including community-based learning, academic internships, global service-learning, and undergraduate research, as well as graduate courses in the Higher Education Program. Dr. Green successfully led the Carnegie Community Engagement application process three times, and has served as a consultant for multiple institutions of higher education.

He currently serves as Editor of Metropolitan Universities journal for the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU). He is coeditor of Re-conceptualizing Faculty Development in Service-Learning/Community Engagement: Exploring Intersections, Frameworks, and Models of Practice (Stylus Publishing, 2018), Crossing Boundaries: Tension and Transformation in International Service-Learning (Stylus Publishing, 2014), Guest Editor of Metropolitan Universities Journal special issue on place-based pedagogy and anchor initiatives (April, 2023), Guest Editor of Experiential Learning and Teaching in Higher Education special issues on justice and experiential education (ELTHE, fall 2021 and spring 2022), and Guest Editor of Metropolitan Universities Journal special issue on faith and community engagement (December, 2020). In addition, Dr. Green served as Guest Editor of a special issue of the Jesuit Higher Education Journal focused on imagination and hope in Jesuit education (December 2023), and he served as a co-editor for an upcoming special issue of International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IJRSLCE) focused on Practitioner-Scholars published in late winter 2023/24.

Dr. Green serves as a Scholar-in-Residence with the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSCLE), an Engaged Scholar with the Society of Experiential Education (NSEE), and an Engaged Scholar with National Campus Compact. Dr. Green was honored with the 2022 Barbara A. Holland Scholar-Administrator Award by the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU), nominated by peers and selected by a committee of sitting and retired presidents, for “an integrated record of administrative leadership and high-impact scholarship that has shaped ideas and actions within and beyond their institution.

Rian Satterwhite

Contact:
rian.satterwhite@unlv.edu
LinkedIn

Rian Satterwhite, M.Ed., serves as Director of the Office of Service Learning & Leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. UNLV is a “Very High Research” public university with 30,000+ students and maintains MSI/HSI/AANAPISI designations. His office is responsible for service-learning, co-curricular service and civic engagement, voter and democratic engagement, leadership development, scholar programs for vulnerable and minoritized student populations, and student basic needs. He also serves as Teaching Faculty for Claremont Lincoln University in the Organizational Leadership and Sustainability Leadership graduate programs.

Experience with the classification:

Rian has responsibilities for service-learning pedagogy development, approval, and reporting across UNLV and serves as a core member of the UNLV Carnegie Elective Classification Committee and the UNLV Community Engagement Council. He has experience with designing institutional frameworks, large-scale curriculum reviews, collaboratively building new data sets, curriculum development and course design, revising academic programs, and in writing the 2020 and 2026 elective classification applications.

Rian also contributed to the creation of the Elective Classification in Leadership for Public Purpose and serves as a reviewer for it.

Specializations:

• Service-Learning
• Curricular and co-curricular community engagement
• Nonprofit partnerships
• Leadership development through community engagement
• Voter & democratic engagement
• Student basic needs

Richard Kinsley

Contact:
dick.kinsley@gmail.com
740.403.2943

Having recently completed 25 years as Executive Director of Ohio Campus Compact, Richard Kinsley, B.S., M.Ed., has extensive experience working in K-12 and higher education as a co-faculty member, curriculum specialist, trainer, evaluator, and administrator in the field of service-learning and experiential education. He has presented over 100 trainings and workshop presentations to faculty and staff, students, and community partners in the areas of service learning 101 and advanced service-learning, community partnership development, assessment of service-learning and community service, and integrating service-learning into course syllabi across disciplines. He has assisted in the establishment and development of offices of community service and civic engagement with two-year, four-year public and private colleges and universities in Ohio and regionally and consulted with many of these campuses to assess their general operations, program effectiveness and to ascertain how to best advance their work.

Richard has developed and managed both higher education and private foundation service-learning and other civic engagement grants, including the co-development of two nationally recognized programs: an AmeriCorps VISTA program and Pay It Forward (PIF), a college course-based student philanthropy program. Since its inception in 2010, PIF has engaged nearly 4,500 college students in over 215 courses across 40 campuses and invested over $700,000 in 460 community nonprofits, with students providing over 71,500 total volunteer hours.

As Executive Director of Ohio Campus Compact, Richard managed staff and programs that engaged and supported its member campuses in public and community service to build sustainable campus/community partnerships, educate students for active citizenship, and improve the social and economic well-being of local communities. Under my leadership, Ohio Campus Compact has grown its membership to 40 Ohio colleges and universities, expanded grant programs for faculty, students, and community organizations, and strengthened technical assistance and training services.

Sandra Sgoutas-Emch

Contact:
emch@sandiego.edu

Dr. Sgoutas-Emch’s portfolio stems over 30 years in higher education both in and out of the classroom. She has implemented community engagement (CE) projects that focus on developing reciprocal, democratic and engaging partnerships that meet the educational goals for students.  As a faculty liaison to the Center for Community Awareness and Social Action at the University of San Diego (USD), Sandra works as a consultant to other faculty in building their projects and on grant teams implementing CE. Sandra has been instrumental in the development of frameworks for the university and community partnerships around CE such as a social model for change and an institution-wide rubric to measure CE. Her experience as the Director of USD’s Center for Educational Excellence included developing workshops, consulting with individual faculty on their teaching, working with departments and schools on curriculum, creating assessments at all levels, and developing diversity and inclusion policies. Sandra has published a number of papers and chapters focused on community engagement as well as faculty development and institutional frameworks. Most recently, she has been a scholar-in residence and communities of practice facilitator for Campus Compact on faculty development and community engagement and is co-leading USD’s Carnegie re-classification efforts.

Sarah Beth Dempsey

Contact:
sdd4@stmarys-ca.edu
LinkedIn

Sarah Beth Dempsey, EdD, is a practitioner-scholar with 20 years of experience in higher education. Since 2013, she has worked at Saint Mary’s College of California in the Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Action (CILSA), a center for social justice programs and community engagement. Currently, she is the Interim Executive Director of CILSA and the Director of Community Engaged Learning and Research. She facilitates engaged learning (EL) faculty development training sessions and supports faculty with course design, student learning outcomes, community partnership processes, and reflection activities. She establishes formal community partner agreements in the form of memoranda of understanding (MOUs) between the College and community partners for students’ service experiences. Her research focuses on the assessment of EL courses and participant engagement. Additionally, she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor, a Carnegie Community Engagement Consultant, and a University of California Berkeley Executive Leadership Academy Fellow.  She successfully led the Saint Mary’s team through the 2024 Carnegie Community Engagement Classification re-application process. Prior to working at Saint Mary’s College, she worked in the University of California system for 10 years in academic affairs roles committed to diversity, educational opportunities, and academic success.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Sacramento State University, a Master of Science degree in Student Counseling and Personnel Services from Kansas State University, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Saint Mary’s College of California. She continued her counseling training in sexual assault counseling and alcohol and drug counseling in Santa Barbara.

Shalom Staub

Contact:
sstaub@college.ucla.edu
LinkedIn

Shalom Staub, Ph.D. is an experienced consultant and facilitator who has dedicated over 40 years of his career to working in higher education, government, and the nonprofit sector to catalyze and navigate organizational change. He currently serves as Assistant Dean and Executive Director of UCLA’s Center for Community Engagement, implementing a comprehensive community engagement strategy for the university: enhancing organizational infrastructure, addressing barriers and incentive structures, and advancing community-engaged research, teaching and learning across undergraduate, graduate, and professional school curricula. 

Prior to joining UCLA, Staub served as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Civic Engagement at Dickinson College. Over 16 years, he launched Dickinson’s service-learning curricular initiative, established an “engaged department” initiative, and worked with faculty to integrate civic learning and community engagement across the curriculum. He led civic engagement strategic planning and implementation, which culminated in institutional restructuring to bring curricular and co-curricular community engagement under a new Center for Civic Learning and Action. His collaborative leadership created the institutional conditions that enabled Dickinson to receive its first-time Carnegie Community Engagement Classification in 2020.

Staub’s experience in achieving and retaining Carnegie Classification status is grounded in his work both at a liberal arts college and a leading U.S. research university. He is adept at engaging faculty and promoting shared governance processes to embed community engagement into the core academic work of the institution. He also has a keen interest in understanding and assessing community partners’ perspectives and how to effectively build processes and structures to support reciprocally valuable and equitable university-community partnerships.

Suchitra Gururaj

Contact:
sgururajconsulting@gmail.com
LinkedIn

Suchitra Gururaj, Ph.D. is a practitioner-scholar of community engagement and its intersections with diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, and government and municipal affairs. Dr. Gururaj co-led a successful Carnegie application by The University of Texas at Austin, a decentralized research flagship with 18 colleges and schools and numerous advisory and development boards. For the last 11 years, Dr. Gururaj has served as Assistant Vice President for Community and Economic Engagement at UT-Austin, in which role she has led the strategic vision, programming, and assessment around student-, faculty-, and community-facing programming from both on- and off-campus locations. A clinical faculty member and diversity trainer, Dr. Gururaj also develops resources for faculty, students, staff, and community partners to enter into mutually beneficial relationships. The co-creator of UT-Austin’s Front Porch Gatherings and former assessment lead for the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, she prioritizes storytelling in her work. Dr. Gururaj is also an executive board member for the Austin Economic Development Corporation, the Community Advancement Network of Austin, and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, through which she maintains ongoing conversations with community residents, city leaders, urban planners, and leaders across the higher education sector. She represents UT-Austin in The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN) convening of Campus Compact. A former staff member at Georgia Tech, the University of Chicago, and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, she has a wide purview of the diverse institutions in higher education. She holds degrees in English from Yale University and the University of Chicago, and earned a doctorate in education from UT-Austin.

Terry Hockenbrough

Contact:
imagineleadconsulting@gmail.com
214.697.8638

Dr. Terry Hockenbrough is an experienced Corporate, Business, Non-Profit and Higher Education professional. She is a veteran of the Carnegie Foundation Classification process, and a returning consulting for Carnegie. Under her leadership, Collin College was twice awarded the Carnegie designation. As part of the Program Review Committee for Collin College, she facilitated departmental and faculty training for the annual program assessment process, and was a mentor to nine institutional programs. As a dedicated community partner, she facilitated the award-winning Service-Learning Program at Collin College, as well as leading a county-wide response to homelessness as the President of the Collin County Homeless Coalition.

Her distinguished career includes service as: Doctorate Faculty at a four-year university; Corporate and Small Business Consultant; Corporate and Small Business Coach, Service-Learning Director, Non-Profit leadership and management, and national conferences and workshops educator.

She was awarded a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from UT Dallas, and holds eighteen professional national certifications including: Outcomes-Based Assessment; multiple International Coaching Federation certifications; Non-profit and Organizational Management and Development; Project Management; Myers Briggs (MBTI); Strengths Quest; Phi Theta Kappa International Leadership Development for Training and Development; Global Career Development; and Conflict and Mediation; and Management Development with HR Specialization. Dr. Hockenbrough is also nationally certified in Grant Writing and Grant Management. She has served on numerous executive boards and community committees, including the Texas 600 COC Continuum of Care Executive Board, the DFW Housing Consortium, and Family Promise of Collin County.

Dr. Hockenbrough’s approach to the Carnegie application is holistic, and includes: institutional reflection, learning, and review; capture of institutional and community vision; recognition and assessment of community needs; recognition and enhancement of strategic community partnerships; empowerment and engagement of institutional leaders, faculty, staff, and students; collaborative organizational teamwork; meaningful documentation; and comprehensive exploration that captures the vast story of institutional engagement.