What are the challenges for academic engagement in our research universities? What are some of the keys to creating a positive and supportive university environment for academic engagement? What does academic engagement look like in a research university?

Research universities come in many forms. Among the top 20 US universities in annual research expenditures, there are: private universities (John Hopkins, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, Duke, MIT, and Washington University in St. Louis); large public state universities (University of Washington, University of Michigan, UCLA, UC San Francisco, and UC San Diego); and public land grant universities (University of Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, University of Minnesota, UC Davis, University of Florida, University of Arizona, UC Berkeley, and Cornell University).

All these universities had annual research expenditures in science and engineering, last year, in excess of $500,000,000. The emphasis is on large scale, supply driven and basic sciences publishable in the major research, peer reviewed and disciplinary journals.

Land grant universities were founded to engage in research with a public purpose and support the needs of society. Historically, the researchers and their outreach partners in cooperative extension were in every county in the US – a partnership model that works. The universities were viewed as essential to developing community and regional resources and capacities by engaging in cooperative local action.

The founders of our land grant universities also regarded education as the foundation for democracy. This education was to be aimed at practical citizenship and was to focus on the development of people’s capacities for working together through civic problem solving. However, even the land grant universities have become big science dominated.