Public Engagement

A visitor asked the question the other day: Why is interest in public engagement increasing so markedly in higher education? Here, in no particular order, are some of the reasons we came up with:

• Trying to develop and implement the contemporary version of the land grant mission
  
• Being driven by the interest (and self-interest) of students
  
• Trying to recapture declining public support
  
• Responding to criticisms from government and private sector about irrelevance
  
• Feeling of disciplinary leaders that disciplines have become sterile and removed
  
• Responding to grant opportunities that emphasize engaged research and teaching
  
• Attracting a different student demographic
  
• Feeling the need to work on important social issues
  
• Young faculty wanting to do engaged work, and older faculty no longer find it feasible to dismiss their interest as fatal to their careers
  
• Increasing prominence of service professions (law, medicine, etc.) relative to traditional core of university
  
• Increasing urbanization
  
• Declining condition of the country and the world, with idealistic hopes that higher education might help