This project examines the role that community engagement plays in enhancing students’ educational success, with underrepresented students as a primary focus. Specifically, the project investigates the relationship between students’ involvement in a variety of community engagement experiences (e.g., service-learning, community service) and students’ academic performance (grade point average), academic progress (units completed), and college completion. In addition, the project explores the relationship between community engagement participation and several mediators of student success, including sense of belong, boundary spanning, and academic engagement.

Why community engagement?

Research studies have found that students’ participation in organized community engagement experiences helps them develop attributes that contribute to educational success, such as academic engagement and motivation, self-efficacy, empowerment, and self-esteem. These findings suggest that engaging students in community engagement—especially those who are less engaged, motivated or confident in their abilities—can enhance students’ capacities to succeed academically. Our project investigates the extent to which different approaches to student community engagement fulfill this promise of educational success.

Why underrepresented students?

Compared to other students, underrepresented students—first generation students, students of color, and students from lower socio-economic backgrounds—are disproportionately more likely to lack self-efficacy and motivation for academic learning. They  also are more likely to drop out of college. Given the potential for community-based learning and engagement experiences to influence these factors in positive ways, we are studying the relationships between underrepresented students’ participation in community-engaged learning and their academic engagement, academic success, and overall academic performance (e.g., college completion).

What we believe

We believe—through the engagement of students in community-based learning and broader community engagement efforts—colleges and universities can help their students, especially those from underserved communities, see their organizations as places that address important societal issues most meaningful to them. By providing community engagement programming, institutions of higher education can be more effective in helping students bridge a growing cultural campus-community divide by cultivating partnerships with diverse sets of communities—those that represent students’ backgrounds as well as those that expand students’ horizons. We believe that campus climates that offer such engagement can help students who aspire to make the world better see higher education as a place to fulfill their goals and dreams.