Facilitating Community Engagement In a University School of Music: A Self-Evaluation

The School of Music (SOM) at a large Midwestern university began a small grants program in 2009 to integrate community engagement into the teaching, research, and service missions of the SOM. To be successful, grant proposers needed to envision shared knowledge, reciprocal planning, and mutual benefits among the university and community partners. The self-evaluation uses functional analysis techniques similar to those used in business management to examine 13 final reports of community engagement projects from the first two years of the grant program. The analysis revealed four roles common to these projects: university partner(s), community partner(s), supporting cast, and audience/recipients. In addition, four functions emerged that are enacted in diverse ways through all projects: knowing/expertise, managing, implementing, and receiving. The functional analysis yielded a spectrum of community engagement activities from a one-way service model to a two-way interactive model of community engagement. While needing further development, the Functional Analysis of Community Engagement in Music (FACEM) model is a viable mechanism for clarifying the purposes, goals, and outcomes of engagement in small grant projects. The functions identified will allow community engagement leaders in the SOM to better facilitate interactive models of community engagement among faculty and graduate student applicants. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]