About 

Engage Dallas is a place-based community engagement initiative via SMU’s Residential Commons to address community needs focusing on South and West Dallas. The initiative is a long-term, university-wide commitment led by students to partner with local residents, organizations, and other leaders to positively impact the community. There is equal emphasis on campus and community impact stemming from the initiative.

Where we serve:

The following strategic goals guide the work of the Engage Dallas initiative:

1. Build capacity for social change in our local community
2. Engage SMU students, staff, and faculty to serve, learn, and lead through the Residential Commons
3. Advance the field of community engagement in higher education

In spring 2019, Boaz Commons received an anonymous donation earmarked specifically for community service activities. Forming the basis for the present initiative were discussions in SCIE about Commons community service, guidelines in the strategic plan, and interest from the Office of the Provost. A brief description of the Boaz Commons community service initiative follows.

The Boaz Commons team comprising the faculty in residence (FiR), residential community director (RCD), and Commons Council director of compassion (student role) has structured its community service to be the same each year. Having a streamlined plan makes it easy for each director of compassion to follow through on community service in Boaz Commons. The ideal model includes one large-scale service day every year (a full day with 100% participation from the Commons), monthly service projects (smaller groups participating in an ongoing service project every third Friday afternoon), and an alternative break trip (10 to 12 Boaz students led by a Boaz faculty/staff affiliate in partnership with SCIE). These initiatives are led by the director of compassion and Compassion Committee members (6 to 10 additional Commons Council members) and are supported by the FiR/RCD team.

In addition to creating and implementing a yearly structure, Boaz Commons decided to focus its efforts on one social issue for its community engagement activities. This decision mirrors the way that a fraternity or sorority has one philanthropic effort as part of its identity. However, a social issue is broader than working with just a single Dallas-area organization and allows the community to connect in multiple ways. Focusing on one social issue is a way for the community to learn about service in depth, build intentional partnerships with a smaller spread of community partners, and see the selected social issue being part of the Boaz Commons identity. The Boaz Commons Compassion Committee looked at several social issues in partnership with SCIE and selected food insecurity as the social issue for Boaz Commons because of its many ties to current Boaz traditions and identity artifacts and symbols.

In the spring 2019 pilot, Boaz Commons selected a social issue, integrated the plan into the Commons Council structure, and engaged in a monthly service activity (serving at Feed My Starving Children, https://www.fmsc.org/). Additionally, Boaz Commons learned of a few roadblocks in the initiative and began to develop plans to overcome them. Boaz discovered the need for more structure and more resources—especially with the program being student-led. The director of compassion at the time of the pilot had difficulty scheduling service events and knowing how to contact individuals at various service organizations. In response, Boaz Commons has provided additional support functions in this area, which are currently underway.

Within Launching SMU’s Second Century: Shaping Leaders for a Changing World, the University articulates goals and objectives for its second 100 years of higher education. We have curated the goals and objectives to which the Engage Dallas initiative contributes:

• Increase involvement of students in internships and practical, field-based experiential learning on campus, in the local community, and around the world (Goal 2, Objective 6)
  • Incubate programs that use Dallas, north Texas, the nation, and the world as a laboratory and a classroom
  • Increase the number of students engaged and the variety of experiences such programs offer

• Assess annually the Residential Commons living/learning environment to ensure that it provides for personal growth, intellectual and social engagement, understanding of personal responsibility, respect for others, and leadership opportunities (Goal 4, Objective 2)
  • Strengthen and assess programming that develops student success and personal growth, as well as promotes civic engagement, community, and diversity
  • Increase faculty and student engagement in co-curricular activities beyond traditional coursework in each Residential Commons

• Expand and strengthen student leadership development opportunities both on and off campus (Goal 4, Objective 3)
  • Strengthen programs designed to develop student leadership and cultural competence through community service (e.g., alternative breaks, Mustang Heroes, Caswell Endowment for Leadership Development and Training, and Crain Leadership Summit)
  • Collaborate with the University Curriculum Council to qualify more student leadership opportunities for credit as one of the University Curriculum proficiencies and experiences

Institutions of higher education are increasingly encouraged to incorporate high-impact educational practices into the curriculum (AAC&U, 2012). One high-impact practice posited by Kuh (AAC&U, n.d.) is service learning. Service learning is an educational pedagogy that provides students an opportunity to gain real-life experience outside of class and apply it to what they are discussing and learning in the classroom. However, traditional service-learning structures have limitations. For example, “in a traditional service-learning context an individual faculty member partners to offer an individual service opportunity . . . service-learning [is] isolated” to that particular class (Yamamura & Koth, 2018, p. 8). Yamamura and Koth (2018) suggested that institutions adopt the place-based community engagement model.

In their book Place-Based Community Engagement in Higher Education: A Strategy to Transform Universities and Communities, Yamamura and Koth (2018) differentiated place-based community engagement from traditional higher-education community engagement strategies like traditional service-learning pedagogy and anchor institutions. “Place-based community engagement is complementary to but different from these other major engagement strategies” (Yamamura & Koth, 2018, p. 12). Place-based community engagement is defined as “a longer-term university-wide commitment to partner with local residents, organizations, and other leaders to focus equally on campus and community impact within a clearly defined geographic area (Yamamura & Koth, 2018, p. 18).

A place-based community engagement model includes (a) geographic focus, (b) equal emphasis on campus and community impact, (c) long-term vision and commitment, and (d) university-wide engagement that animates the mission and develops the institution, as well as (e) draws upon the concepts of collective impact (Yamamura & Koth, 2018).

The Engage Dallas initiative operationalizes the place-based community engagement model for higher education. The model works well to connect University needs (i.e., application for Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement, SMU strategic plan, DSA strategic plan, and departmental constituent outcomes) and expressed community needs of west and south Dallas (Garcia, 2019; Schutz, 2019; Serve West Dallas, 2017). Utilizing the place-based community engagement model provides the Residential Commons at SMU a powerful way to creatively connect the campus with its surrounding community to foster positive social transformation as world changers. The table demonstrates the way the initiative maps to the place-based community engagement model. 

Engage Dallas Connection to Place-Based Community Engagement Model

“While an increasing number of universities have or are committed to engaging their campuses in their surrounding communities, many recognize they lack the strategic focus and resources to maximize and sustain their impact on those communities” (Yamamura & Koth, 2018, p. 3). In developing community engagement strategies, most universities and community organizations face significant challenges in deciding which to partner with and why. Frequently, this leads universities and community organizations to say “yes” to too many opportunities, which significantly limits their ability to pursue long-term impact. Focusing on an established geographic area can make it much easier to decide where to deploy resources and which partnerships to prioritize—and thus increase the ability to form strong and sustainable partnerships that are of greater value to all stakeholders.