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| navigate: home: magazine: fall 2001: article | |
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Deans discuss their vision for outreach By Deborah A. Benedetti | ||||||||||||||
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Penn State defines outreach as the process of extending the intellectual expertise of the University through the integration of teaching, research and service to address the social, civic, economic and environmental issues and opportunities of the Commonwealth, nation and world. Outreach is a form of what the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities calls the scholarship of engagement. Two deans discuss their perspectives on outreach and its impact on the faculty, students and community members who participate in various forms of outreach scholarship: Dr. William D. Milheim, campus executive officer and associate dean, Penn State Great Valley, and Dr. Raymond T. Coward, dean, College of Health and Human Development. Dr. William D. Milheim “One of the things we do well at Penn State Great Valley is outreach,” Milheim said. “We’re a small campus — three buildings — but we’re very efficient. As Penn State’s professional graduate school, we have a special mission to focus on graduate education and continuing education, with an emphasis on technology in many of our programs. “We have approximately 3,400 total students, with 1,700 enrolled in graduate resident instruction and 1,700 more enrolled in continuing education noncredit courses. We run programs during evenings and weekends to accommodate the scheduling needs of our students. The campus is very entrepreneurial.” There are about 40 full-time faculty members at the campus, and one-third are involved in various forms of outreach. Penn State Great Valley got its start in the Delaware Valley area near Philadelphia in 1963. “We are the nation’s first university facility with a permanent location in a corporate park,” he noted. “This historic alliance of higher education with business and industry drives our market responsiveness. We are here to serve the educational needs of adult professionals.” Great Valley’s strength is the cooperative relationship between resident instruction and continuing education and the collaborative spirit among all campus groups, Milheim said. “We wouldn’t be where we are without this interaction and collaboration.” Resident instruction and continuing education work together to offer joint job fairs and diversity-related events. “We consistently share faculty and students,” he added. “We also have a rapid-response fund, begun with a lead gift from a private donor, which helps us kick-start the development of new programs.” The school has several new academic initiatives and also offers corporate executive briefings to local and regional executives. “We are very tailored to company needs. We deliver our educational programs on several Penn State campuses and at various companies. We are a dynamic and responsive organization.” In summarizing his vision for outreach at Penn State Great Valley, Milheim cited his focus on the special mission of the school, the cooperative relationship between continuing education and resident instruction, the multiple partnerships the campus has with corporations and the school’s interest in forming significant relationships with local and regional organizations. Dr. Raymond T. Coward “I began my academic career in Cooperative Extension, and I understand and appreciate how important this enterprise is to research-intensive universities like Penn State,” Coward said. “I have also spent my life in land-grant universities, where faculty take research and put it into action.” He brought these experiences with him when he became dean of the College of Health and Human Development in 2000. The college has a century of research and scholarship in the areas of biobehavioral health; communication disorders; kinesiology; health policy and administration; home economics; hotel, restaurant and institutional management; human development and family studies; leisure studies; nursing; nutrition; and recreation and park management. The college has two schools, six departments, two preschool programs and more than a dozen research centers, laboratories and clinics. There are 260 faculty members and about 6,000 undergraduate students (4,000 at University Park and 2,000 at other campuses) and 450 graduate students at University Park. “Faculty interests are so applied. Outreach is very much a part of who we are and what we want to be,” he added. Coward said four principles drive outreach in the college:
“We seek opportunities that integrate teaching, research and service. I like to see programs where it is impossible to tell if the programs are teaching, research or outreach,” he said. At Penn State, faculty members are involved in drug abuse prevention training in 10 rural school districts in Pennsylvania. This federally funded program is designed to conduct a formal study to determine which intervention works best. “This program is clearly outreach and service in the best sense,” he said. “At the same time, our undergraduate and graduate students were providing some of the educational programs. We also were evaluating the approaches to identify best practices.”
The college has opened an office at Penn State Harrisburg to concentrate its outreach efforts in the areas of nursing, early childhood education training and violence prevention. “We are looking for a partner in a more urban area so that we can give our faculty and students access to an urban environment,” he said. The college has many programs under way in rural areas, including one in Mt. Union, Pa. “We have opened a rural nursing clinic, and we are offering students a Spring Break Alternative experience,” Coward said.
The college is working with the Penn State World Campus to develop and deliver programs. One corporation wants education and training for employees in 700 assisted living facilities. Some of the modules faculty create for this program will have multiple uses, he noted. Such partnerships also have the potential to create new research opportunities for faculty.
“We must create a system for our faculty that both rewards and recognizes their outreach contributions,” Coward said. “I have made it clear that outreach will be weighted and valued in annual evaluations. It’s easy in my college. Our faculty welcome this. It also helps that we have a President who is a vocal supporter of outreach.” | |||||||||||||
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