Director, Center for Civic Engagement

Binghamton University invites nominations and expressions of interest for the position of Director of the Center for Civic Engagement.  Established in 2010, the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at Binghamton University serves the dual purposes of creating solutions to community problems and developing experiential educational opportunities for students.  

The Director will be charged with advancing the mission of the CCE by overseeing the Center’s work with faculty, staff, students, and community partners to create and expand experiential learning opportunities with public benefit. Efforts will be directed at developing meaningful community partnerships, promoting ongoing service opportunities, supporting faculty engagement (engaged teaching and scholarship), and providing resources and support for student-led change-making.  The Director will be involved with Center management and will focus time on strategic initiatives such as creating a culture of engagement across the institution and securing external funding/resources.

Roles & Responsibilities:

1) Oversee faculty engagement in the development of service-learning courses and experiential learning opportunities

-Identify, expand, and coordinate the network of faculty and community members interested in participating in collaborative learning and service

-Increase the number of faculty involved in teaching academic service learning (ASL) and community-engaged learning (CEL) courses, conducting community-based research and other faculty engagement work.

-Develop projects with local non-profit agencies that will help achieve their missions, as well as provide learning opportunities for students

-Develop and promote problem-based participatory learning opportunities on-campus as well as off-campus

-Collaborate with campus teaching and learning initiatives to provide resources

-Partner with Center for Learning and Teaching to provide faculty development sessions encouraging service learning components in courses

-Provide direct support and mentoring to assist faculty with the development of service learning components and evaluation thereof

2) Increase and enhance campus participation in community service activities, with an emphasis on deep, sustained engagement

-Enhance the efforts of community-based programming managed by CCE (community schools, BDDP, community health outreach)

-Support the promotion of community service, including one-time events and ongoing service not directly coordinated by CCE and other co-curricular engagement activities 

-Expand the service listings database of community engagement opportunities in Broome County and surrounding area

-Oversee marketing and communications to publicize the CCE and its activities to both the campus and regional community

-Promote involvement in community service and civic engagement through student organizations, Binghamton Scholars Program, Orientation and First-Year Programs and Fraternity and Sorority Life.

-Promote the development of service opportunities in both curricular and co-curricular formats, in order to increase the quality and depth of experiential education activities.

3) Develop and strengthen campus-community partnerships

-Build strong linkages of cooperation with academic departments, centers, and other units on campus for mutual benefit

-Provide support and direction to partnership with Broome County Promise Zone to enhance university connections and support to local schools through student volunteers, interns, faculty partnerships, and other resources.

-Develop and host public/university events to identity and explore community assets, needs and issues

-Support schools / units in their efforts to expand range of campus-community partnerships

-Represent the university at community meetings that could result in collaborative work

4) Advance the scholarship of service and civic engagement

-Conduct research and disseminate results to stakeholders

-Partner with SAASI to engage in program/university assessment and evaluation and document extent of activities and impact.

-Collaborate with regional, national and international organizations and institutions on scholarship and research that studies the processes, relationships and impacts of outreach work on all constituencies (students, faculty, community).

-Increase civic learning and democratic engagement through voter engagement and student-led change-making (such as Passion to Action and other resources to help students create positive community change).

-Pursue external funding for programs as well as nominate programs for state and national awards

-Identify relevant grant funding opportunities, complete grant applications and oversee all grant projects.

-Nominate programs for awards such as the President’s Honor Roll for Community Service, Campus Compact Spotlight Awards and others as opportunities present themselves.

Requirements:

-Experience in the administration of community-based or service-learning programs at a college or university

-Preferred experience as a teaching faculty and with the integration of service-learning into coursework

-Proven ability to secure external funding

-Proven ability to lead, motivate and supervise staff

-Knowledge of the role of civic education in higher education

-Proven ability to build strong relationships with faculty, students, staff, and community leaders

-Organizational and operational skills to plan and oversee programming and assessments

-Research experience in field related to the CCE’s mission

-Working knowledge of experiential education, community-based research and service learning

-Collaborative and democratic work style in which student and community input is valued

Interested parties should submit a letter of interest and current resume/curriculum vitae to BinghamtonCCE@vallettaritson.com.  Review of candidates will begin immediately, with consideration given by the search committee until the position is filled.  A full Position Profile is available upon request.