GLOSSARY OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Many students arrive on campus with little or no knowledge of the way a college or university works, the power dynamics that are at play, or who does what. By the time a student has learned to navigate the campus; knowing how to leverage support and create institutional change, they are often juniors and seniors. This glossary, along with the Community Mapping Tool, are designed to help students to identify allies and challenges on campus early on in their college careers.

The challenges that arise from language barriers between campus and community are well documented. The same barriers can challenge students who are trying to create substantial cultural or institutional change. Students and administrators have to have a shared understanding of the words, terms, and lingo they use to work effectively together. Students not only benefit from knowing what the different structures and roles on campus exist for, but also benefit from being able to speak the language of deans, presidents, and faculty.


Most people working in higher-education have convoluted words for very simple things. In the most simple sense this glossary should help to clarify any terms on the Student Civic Engagement Campaign web site that are unclear. Beyond that, it is hoped that students will be able to arm themselves with this language so that when in discussion with various stakeholders on campus, the student speaking to the campus administrator or faculty member will not come up against a language barrier.


At the core of this campaign is the need to listen to students voices. Please take these definitions as points for discussion and send us your comments, your additions, and your definitions.


The Glossary is split up into three sections: People, Places, and Terms. Scroll down to browse the entire glossary, or use the Index below to jump directly to a term.

Board of Regents
A group which governs the State University System, the vocational-technical centers, the community colleges, and other programs relating to postsecondary education in some states. All members are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the State Senate. This group could be an important ally if you can find ways to present to the board your activities and your projects. Ask someone in your Provost’s office to identify how to contact the Board of Regents.

Chief Academic Officers (CAO)
Also called Provost, Academic Dean, Dean of Faculty, or Vice-President of Academic Affairs – the CAO is the primary administrator in charge of the academic core of the institution. CAOs and their staff oversee department chairs, approve new classes, minors, and majors, as well as review cases of struggling students. These people are instrumental in implementing change in the educational structure of a course, department, or campus. Students tend not to come in contact with CAOs unless they are in academic trouble, and therefore CAOs often go unknown for most students. CAOs commonly have discretionary funds, their own private budgets, that they can give out for any project they deem worthy.

Dean of Academics - see Chief Academic Officers (CAO)

Dean of Students
Dean of Students represents the head of the “student life side” of the campus. Contemporary colleges and universities have created a spilt identity between what is most commonly known as student affairs and academic affairs. This division is odd, considering that students rarely draw a line between their academic lives and their personal interests. It may be useful to know what departments answer to what Dean. Often times community service offices will be housed under the Dean of Students, whereas service-learning offices will be located in academic affairs.

Department Chair
A tenured faculty member who has taken a leadership role in a department. The department chair approves courses for the major, manages the department budget, supervises other faculty members’ workload, and ensures that the department’s activities are consistent with university requirements. Appealing to the department chair for funds may work, although department budgets are often slim. You can also ask to present at department meetings if you wish to gain academic support for a club or organization project. The department chair also has a pivotal role in determining whether junior faculty get promoted. Thus, getting new faculty to take service and engagement seriously often depends on whether the Chair takes those things seriously. Departmental sponsorship (money or otherwise) for your events or dialogues can give the events legitimacy in some peoples eyes. In addition, under “academic freedom” departments are sometimes able to bend the rules or standards of the university. The administration may not be able to restrict a really risky rally, speaker, or theatre production, if sponsored by a department.

President
College and University presidents have a wide variety of roles, and the roles that are given the most time and emphasis depends on the individual president. Presidents’ major responsibilities include representing the university, fund raising, and overall decision making for the campus. The president reports to the Board of Trustees. Presidents are often traveling, and at times they are seen by students as absent from the daily campus life of students. However, securing time with a president around the issues and actions you are concerned with can be very useful. And be flexible and well prepared, you may need to sit at meeting with a president’s staff before getting time with the president. National Student Civic Engagement Week, during president’s week in February, may be an especially good time to get your president to pay attention to student actions and issues.

Provost – see Chief Academic Officers (CAO)

Vice-President – see Chief Academic Officers (CAO)

Admissions Office
The admissions office often becomes irrelevant to most students once they have been accepted and are on campus. However, there is no other office that is quite so image conscious. The admissions office can be useful in many ways. Admissions offices often have file drawers filled with one page descriptions of things on campus (clubs, sports, departments, etc…). Offer to write up a blurb about your project or club, or better yet, offer to write a personal letter to interested prospective students about service and or politics on campus. Secondly the Admission’s office holds events such as open houses when everyone from administration, to faculty, to staff are all very aware of university appearances. Coordinating a service event or voter registration drive with the admissions office can help draw attention and support from numerous sections of campus who otherwise would be hard to tap into. Also, holding a rally or protest on any of these days will serve to draw swift attention to your group, but it will be delicate and will have to be navigated wisely, as administration will be on edge. Most recently, the U.S. News and World Report on College and University rankings has begun to consider Service-Learning in their rankings. See if your school is on the list, and work with the admissions office to fully promote your activities and issues.

Communications/Public Relations Office
The Communications/Public Relations office is another office that is well versed in tracking and keeping in touch with the wider world of the University (parents, alumni, even your home town newspaper). The staff in this office are very skilled in getting media attention and know the venues both locally and nationally to publicize your event or your cause. The communications office often tracks famous alumni as well, which can be useful if you are trying to secure a big name for an event on campus.

Community Service / Service-Learning / Community-based Learning Office
A person, group, or office on campus which specializes in coordinating partnerships and activities between campus and community. Traditionally these offices were defined by the part of campus they resided in (student activities versus academic affairs). Some campus may have two such offices, one on either side of this divide. The staff who work at these offices can be very helpful in nearly every aspect of your activities, and are most often very supportive of student voice.

Development Office
The development office is the office that is in charge of fund raising for the university. Many campuses have alumni and parent giving programs as integral parts of this office. This office can be very useful for contacting alumni and parents about your issue/cause, or in an attempt to raise money for a club or event on campus. Development offices also work on writing and securing grants for the university around research and other projects.

Student Affairs Office – See Dean of Students

ABD
"All but degree" or "all but dissertation" - Not a formal degree; applies to someone who has completed all the requirements for a Ph.D. except the dissertation.

Action Research
A way of generating research about a social system while simultaneously attempting to change that system. Action research seeks both to understand and to alter the problems generated by social systems.

Assessment
1) Community assessment refers to a study (not necessarily formal) to determine the current status of a community. It may focus on both the needs and the assets of the community, and precedes development of plans and action for work in the community. 2) Assessment of impact refers to assessment to evaluate the effect that a particular program or policy has had on students, faculty, community members, an institution, or the community as a whole.

Asset-based
One who takes an asset-based approach to work with others focuses on others’ resources and strengths rather than needs and deficiencies.

Citizenship
Citizenship can be understood both in its most literal sense— citizen as a legally recognized resident of a nation— and in its more theoretical sense— citizen as someone who contributes to the creation of a democratic way of life through values and public actions.

Civic responsibility
The commitment of a citizen to his or her community. Service-learning and community engagement are often cited as ways of developing civic responsibility.

Civil society
Civil society refers to those groups, organizations, and associations that are neither private (businesses) nor public (government); often called the nonprofit, independent, or voluntary sector.

Co-curricular Service-Learning
Signifies community service that is not connected to an academic course but still retains some aspect of reflection.

Community
Community can be a troubling term. Often when people on campus talk about community, they are referring to the organizations that the college or university partners with. However, the community is often not fully represented by the organizations that claim to serve it. Community can be used in a number of ways to apply to almost any group of individuals. In the most general sense it describes a geographic group whose members engage in some face-to-face interaction. Such communities exist all around us in our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces, our campuses, etc.

Community development
The terms community development and economic development are generally used to express a similar idea: that of community members working together to achieve long-term benefits for the community and an overall stronger sense of community.

Community partnerships
Community partnerships differ dramatically from placements. Often an internship will “place” a student in a community organization or business so that the student can gain useful experience. The idea of partnerships is based in a reciprocal relationship in which the community partner, the academic institution, and the student each share and benefit from each others resources. Often in true partnerships, a community partner will help in the design of the course curriculum and act as a co-teacher, both in the classroom and in the community. A true partnership can be useful to student engagement because it can challenge all the parties involved to move toward a more democratic educational model. In addition, community partnerships can encourage more overlap, welcoming community partners on to campus to participate in campus events and visa versa. Creating community partnerships will help you to involve community members in your on campus events.

Community service
Community service refers to action taken to meet the needs of others and better the community as a whole.

Curricular Service
Signifies community service that is explicitly connected to an academic course. Curricular service may also be called service-learning. See service-learning for a more detailed definition.

Democracy
Democracy is most commonly understood as a political system, however, this is a limited use of the term. We tend to use democracy in its fuller sense as a broad social idea that connotes a society where people share equally the freedom, power, and wherewithal to engage in meaningful forms of association with others.

Disciplines
Disciplines are simply topics, majors, subjects, or programs on campus. Most disciplines have national associations such as the American Psychological Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. These associations may have funds available for student/faculty work in service and civic engagement, or have opportunities to present at national conferences. Disciplines are often organized on campus around colleges and departments. Colleges are groupings of similar departments, such as the College of Humanities, College of Social Science, etc. Specific disciplines are organized by departments. The administrator of a college is usually referred to as a Dean, the administrator of a department is referred to as a Chair.

Discourse
In order for communities to function within a democracy, community members must engage in discussion and dialogue, which includes diverse voices and opinions, through which they arrive at shared ideas and visions for their community.

Discretionary funds
Discretionary funds or budgets are pools of money set aside for specific people on campus to support projects that arise through-out the year. These are very flexible budgets that can vary in sizes. The Chief Academic Officer may use their funds to support a student research project or development of a new class. The Dean of Students may give small grants for unique collaborative events sponsored by a number of clubs on campus. The key question you must answer when applying for funds from these budgets is how your event/project will benefit the greater campus. College deans and department chairs may also have discretionary funds in their budgets.

Empowerment
Recognizing power inequalities and seeking to reduce them by working together.

Engaged campus
The engaged campus is a college or university which emphasizes community engagement through its activities and its definition of scholarship. The engaged campus is involved in: community relationships; community development; community empowerment; community discourse; and educational change.

Epistemology
A theory or philosophy of knowledge, ways of knowing, how we know.

Experiential education
Education in which the learner experiences a visceral connection to the subject matter. Bill Proudman writes: “Experiential education is not simply ‘learning by doing.’ Living could be described as learning by doing. Often, this is not education, but simply a routinized, prescribed pattern of social conditioning that teaches us to stay in pre-determined boxes for fear of being labeled as outside of the norm. Good experiential learning combines direct experience that is meaningful to the student with guided reflection and analysis. It is a challenging, active, student-centered process that impels students toward opportunities for taking initiative, responsibility, and decision making.”

Free space
Sara Evans and Harry Boyte define free spaces as particular public places in the community "in which people are able to learn a new self-respect, a deeper and more assertive group identity, public skills, and values of cooperation and civic virtue." Put simply, free spaces are settings between private lives and large-scale institutions where ordinary citizens can act with dignity, independence, and vision.

Mentor
In the context of community service, the term mentor is often used to refer to a specific type of relationship between an adult and a youth. Mentorship occurs naturally in healthy communities in the form of a variety of support systems from which young people may learn. “Structured” mentoring programs attempt to provide that guidance where it is missing. In the context of the college or university, a mentor for a student may be a useful or supportive faculty member, giving them guidance or advice.

Pedagogy
A theory of teaching, how one teaches, style or art of teaching. For example: service-learning and experiential education are both pedagogies

Public good
The public or common good is that set of goals which promotes the overall well-being of a citizenry. The public good amounts to those goals which individuals in a community have in common and achieve by sharing ideas and working together.

Reciprocity
Reciprocity is a central component in service-learning and community engagement. In true campus/community partnerships every individual, organization, and entity involved in service-learning functions as both a teacher and a learner.

Reflection
Reflection is a primary component of service-learning. Reflection describes the process of deriving meaning and knowledge from experience. Virtually all thought entails some level of reflection. Effective reflection engages both teachers and students in a thoughtful and thought-provoking process that consciously connects learning with experience.

Service-learning
Service-learning is a particular form of experiential education that incorporates community service as another text that can contribute and deepen classroom topics through critical reflection and dialogue. There are three general characteristics of service-learning: 1) It is based on the experience of meeting needs in the community. 2) It incorporates reflection and academic learning. 3) It contributes to students’ interest in and understanding of community life.

Social capital
‘Social capital’ a term popularized by Robert Putnam, refers to features of social organization, such as networks, relationships, norms, and trust, that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. Social capital enhances the benefits of investment in physical and human capital.

Social change
Social change describes efforts to address the root causes of problems that affect society.

Tenure
A status, granted after a probationary period which protects a teacher from dismissal without due process. The tenure system can be very difficult for professors and demands much of their time when they are nearing consideration. Understanding the systems of tenure and faculty rewards at your school is important as you attempt to develop faculty allies for your effort. Some schools are more supportive of quality teaching and even community involvement, however, most are based on publishing and research.

Volunteerism
The act of engaging in service that addresses immediate social needs, but does not necessarily address the conditions or root causes from which those needs emerge.