African Americans and Community Engagement in Higher Education: Community Service, Service-Learning, and Community-Based Research

This book discusses race and its roles in university-community partnerships. The contributors take a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and multiregional approach that allows students, agency staff, community constituents, faculty, and campus administrators an opportunity to reflect on and redefine what impact African American identity--in the academy and in the community--has on various forms of community engagement. From historic concepts of "race uplift" to contemporary debates about racialized perceptions of need, they argue that African American identity plays a significant role. In representing best practices, recommendations, personal insight, and informed warnings about building sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships, the contributors provide a cogent platform from which to encourage the difficult and much-needed inclusion of race in dialogues of national service and community engagement.

Stephanie Y. Evans is Associate Professor of African American Studies and Women's Studies at the University of Florida and the author of Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850-1954: An Intellectual History. Colette M. Taylor is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Texas Tech University. Michelle R. Dunlap is Professor and Chair of Human Development at Connecticut College and the author of Reaching Out to Children and Families: Students Model Effective Community Service. DeMond S. Miller is Professor of Sociology at Rowan University and the coauthor (with Jason David Rivera) of Hurricane Katrina and the Redefinition of Landscape.