Who is Represented?
2015 =  240
83 = first time
157 = re-classified from 2006 & 2008
2010 = 121 new additions
TOTAL = 361
 
Out of 4140 Colleges & Universities in the US
 
 
What Were the Common Issues in Applications that Did Not Receive the Classification?
If you don't receive the classification, the organization will provide you with general feedback. The website reiterates common issues they found in the 2015 applications:

1. They need to give more attention to assessment, particularly from community.
2. They don't show enough evidence of ongoing relationships with partners.
3. There aren't awards and other clear incentives for faculty engaged in the work.
4. Community engagement isn't prevalent in other high-impact initiatives such as first-year programs, learning communities. Also, they aren't connected to other initiatives (diversity, etc.).

 
 
Why Are Public, Four-Year Institutions Overrepresented?
Despite there being far more private institutions in the US than public institutions (1699 v 2441), public institutions receive the classification in higher numbers. This might mean that the application process is so intense that private institutions don't have the resources to complete it or the infrastructure to receive the classification. It might also mean that they don't apply in as high numbers or that they aren't as interested in community engagement in general. (It falls outside their mission, perhaps, though I find that dubious.) The website does not clarify any of the numbers by addressing the applicants who do not receive the classification. Community colleges seem to be least represented.
 
 
Why Obtain the Classification?
There is no explanation of why one would want the classification other than the fact that it might help institutions reflect on and guide their practices. The website puts it thus, "The classification is not an award. It is an evidence-based documentation of institutional practice to be used in a process of self-assessment and quality improvement."
 
 
How Do They Define Community Engagement?
Very Strictly! The website states, "Community engagement describes collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity."
 
"The purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good" (emphasis added).
 
I'm wondering if the Carnegie Classification reinforces or is at least more conducive to public universities that have a bloated administrative staff.
 
Questions
Who designed the classification requirements?
What institutions or types of institutions were they at?
How do those requirements relate to or reflect their own institutions in terms of what offices existed, what personal existed, etc?
What kinds of infrastructure do these application requirements not only rely on but demand?
 
I raise these questions because the institution I work at has minimal administrative staff. Much of that work is done by faculty, and course reassignments are minimal as well, which means faculty members provide these services on top of their 4/4 teaching loads. This line of questioning also connects to why so few community colleges obtain the classification.
 
Next, what and who get left out when we focus on community engagement as working with specific partners? People who don't use or don't work at those organizations are obviously left out. I have serious problems with identifying government agencies and non-profits as communities. The definition of community engagement provided by Carnegie is a huge problem and actually limits the types of relationships that colleges and universities can and should have with people who aren't part of the university.
 
 
2020 First-Time Classification
They offer an old version "for planning purposes." The new application will be made available Jan 2018.
 
It seems the classification lasts 10 years (8 years before reapplication).
 
 
2020 Application Timeline
January 2018
Announcement of the 2020 process

May 1- July 1, 2018
Request for applications (payment of fee and release of application)

April 15, 2019
Applications due/Reviewing begins

December 2019
Review process completed/campuses notified

January 2020
2020 classification results announced

 
There is less than one year to complete the application (May 1 to April 15 at best).
 
 
Advice of First-Time Applicants

1. Use the guide and start work early.
2. Create a team to work on the application (include community partners).
3. Asses successes as well as "activities that didn't go as planned." It's unclear whether they actually want you to address these given the limited space of the application, however.
4. Each section has word limits. Be judicious in what you provide, and be sure to provide "important and compelling evidence."

 
 
Who Decides the Criteria and Reviews Applications?
Big wigs in community engagement
For 2015:
Celestina Castillo, Director, Center for Community Based Learning, Occidental College
Amy Driscoll, Consulting Scholar, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Timothy Eatman, Co-Director, Imagining America, Syracuse University
Thomas Ehrlich, Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University 
Matthew Hartley, Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania
Julie Hatcher, Executive Director, Center for Service and Learning, Associate Professor, Philanthropic Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Barbara Holland, Senior Scholar, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Elizabeth Hollander, Senior Fellow, Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Tufts University
Emily Janke, Director, Institute for Community & Economic Engagement, University of North Carolina Greensboro
Lori Moog, Director of Service Learning and Community Outreach, Raritan Valley Community College
William Plater, Chancellor's Professor Emeritus, Executive Vice Chancellor Emeritus, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Eugene Rice, Senior Fellow, Association of American Colleges and Universities
John Saltmarsh, Director, New England Resource Center for Higher Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Lorilee Sandmann, Professor, Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy, University of Georgia
Chanda Smith Baker, President & CEO, Pillsbury United Communities, Minneapolis, MN
 
 
NOTE: The Carnegie site sends you to the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (UMass Boston).
 
 
Additional Resources
Application Process FAQ: http://nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1391
 
Sample Applications: http://nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1386:community-engagement-classification-resources-sample-applications&catid=914:carnegie-foundation-classification
 
Webinars: http://nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1385:community-engagement-classification-resources-webinar-recordings&catid=914:carnegie-foundation-classification
 
Adds a Note about NERCHE/Carnegie Relationship
Around 2013 they made an agreement that NERCHE would serve as the classification's administrators.

http://www.neh.gov/files/grants/humanities-connections-edit.pdf
 
Things to look out for/Questions for St. Ed's Grant Director

• Are we registered with Grants.gov?
• What is an Entity record, and is ours up-to-date?
• Do we have an indirect-cost rate that has been federally negotiated? If so, what is it?

 
Purpose of Grant
"Humanities Connections grants seek to expand the role of the humanities in the undergraduate curriculum at two- and four-year institutions, offering students in all academic fields new opportunities to develop the intellectual skills and habits of mind that the humanities cultivate" (2).
 
Not required, but gives special encouragement to "projects that foster collaboration between humanities faculty and their counterparts in the social and natural sciences and pre-service or professional programs in business, engineering, health sciences, law, computer science, and other non-humanities fields" (2).
 
Core Features of Grant:

1. Faculty from at least two separate departments or schools at a single institution must collaborate to devise new curricular arrangements; and
2. Projects must include provisions for high-impact student engagement activities that relate directly to the topic(s) of the linked courses. These activities could include individual or collaborative undergraduate research projects; opportunities for civic engagement; or a structured experience with community-based, project-based, or site-based learning. Community organizations and cultural institutions can play key roles in this regard.

 
Grant Requirements:

• Must support collaborative teams of faculty members from two or more departments or disciplines, at least one of which must be within the humanities;
• Must result in a coherent set of at least three new or substantially revised undergraduate courses;
• Must integrate the subject matter and perspectives of multiple disciplines, either within the humanities or (more broadly) with fields outside the humanities; and
• Must encourage student engagement through structured opportunities for undergraduate research or experiential learning.

 
Grantees may not use funding for:

• the development of courses for a graduate degree or non-degree program; textbook research or revision;
• promotion of a particular political, religious, or ideological point of view;
• advocacy for social action; or
• projects focused primarily on the creation or performance of art.

 
Grantees may use the funding to:

• engage faculty in joint study,
• bring in outside experts,
• organize seminars on substantive issues, and
• bring relevant parties together to plan the student engagement activities.

 
Connected to the NEH's "The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square" initiative. (look for more info about that initiative).
 
They specifically state that the proposals will be evaluated according to the program's criteria and not in terms of how they correspond to the initiative.
 
"NEH endeavors to make the products of its awards available to the broadest possible audience" (4). In other words, to the extent that the project may be replicable, resulting documents and such need to be made available to the public.
 
up to $100,000 with a grant period of 18-36 months to begin no later than Sept 2017

Notes on Grant Writing Resources
 
"How to Apply for Federal Grants" (2012)
https://www.tgci.com/resources/webcasts/how-apply-federal-grants
 
Grantsmanship Center's format has become standard in the field.

8 Sections (information categories)

1.  Summary

• Snapshot of entire proposal and provides context
• First thing the reader sees and last thing the writer prepares

2.  Introduction of the Applicant Organization

• Tells what the organization is and what it does
• Document the qualifications and achievements of the organization in ways that reinforce how you will succeed in implementing the program that you propose later in the proposal

3.  The Problem

• Heart of the proposal
• Why your organization is seeking a grant
• It describes and documents the situation that concerns your organization and is motivating the grant proposal.

4. Program Outcomes

• Specific measurable statements about how your organization expects the problem to change based on the program you intend to implement

5. Methods

• What your organizations will do to produce the program outcome
• E.g., service approaches, activities, etc. and a timeframe for these

6.  Evaluation Plan

• The process that your organization will use to assess implementation and to determine whether or not the program is leading to the outcomes described in section 4.

7.  Future Support

• Describes how you plan to continue the program after the grant runs out
• "Funders view grants as investments, and so should we all."
• The finances, the resources, and the support that you expect to bring in to continue the program.

8.  Budget

• A detailed estimate of the expenses and other resources that will be required to run the program.

               
Category of Information/
Other Terms for Concept

Summary/
Abstract; Overview; Synopsis

Introduction of the Applicant Organization/
Applicant Background; Organizational Capacity; Organizational History; Applicant Qualifications

Problem/
Need; Needs Assessment; Problem Analysis; Problem Statement; Problem Justification

Program Outcomes/
Objectives; Gals; Results; Impact; Program Aims; Outcome Objectives

Methods/
Activities; Methodology; Procedures; Program Approach; Program Design; Service Strategies; Program Objectives

Evaluation/
Plan to Measure; Impact Assessment; Assessment of Success

Future Support/
Future Funding; Sustainability

Budget/
Line-Item Budget; Costs; Expenses

 
The section names might be different, but they basically mean the same things that the               Grantsmanship Center laid out.
 
 
"How to Get a Grant" (2012)
https://www.tgci.com/resources/webcasts/how-get-grant

• The Problem section is the most important. It's the heart of the proposal that explains the why.
• Terms used are wildly variable from funder-to-funder.
  
• This section describes your organizations motivation for seeking support:
• A situation is
  • causing harm,
  • threatens harm,
  • less than ideal, or
  • an opportunity.
    
• Documentation is very important in this section. You must answer the following questions and use evidence to do so.
  1. What is the situation that concerns you? What does the situation look like?
  2. Why does it matter? Who or what is affected and how?
  3. Why is it happening? What's causing it?
• The why is not about your organization or what your organization wants to do.
• Problem
  1. Situation that concerns your org (Directly reflects program outcomes.)
  2. Significance/Why this maters
  3. Why is this happening? (Directly related to your methods.)
• Don't start with your organization's need for money, or what your organization wants to do.
• Always start with why, a thorough examination of who is affected, how, and why it needs to be addressed.

 
 
"How to Write a Mission Statement" (1998/2012)
https://www.tgci.com/resources/webcasts/how-write-mission-statement
 
Role of Mission Statement

• Foster a mutual understanding of the organization's purpose
• Concisely convey that purpose to others
• Serve as a compass to provide direction

 
Much of the focus is on crafting one, but I'm particularly interested in how it comes into the grant.
 
Mission statements answer 3 questions

1. Purpose: What are the problems, needs, or opportunities that the organization exists to address?
2. Business: What is the organization doing to address those needs?
3. Values: What guides the work of the organization?

 
Problems change over time , and organizations evolve to embrace different or larger missions. This demands that you review your mission statement periodically.
 
Advice

• The Mission statement should inspire support and ongoing commitment.
• Don't use jargon. Make it clear and easy to understand.
• Use active language.
• Keep it brief.
• Keep it up-to-date.

 
 
"8 Reasons You'll Get the Grant" (2012)
https://www.tgci.com/video-webcast
 
8 Reasons You Won't Get Funded/Reasons You Will:

1. You misread directions./Always follow directions.
2. You miss the deadline./Stick to deadlines.
3. Your proposal doesn't match the funder's interests./Make sure you address the information to your audience and the grant fits.
4. Reasoning is confused. Reader can't tell what you're trying to do or why./Be clear and make sure each section creates a cohesive narrative.
5. You just want to do good things (shows a superficial approach to the problem)./Demonstrate a complex view of the problem and concrete steps you'll take to address it.
6. Proposal is based on beliefs and assumptions./Use facts (particularly numbers).
7. Proposal seeks support for your latest idea./Use data, experience, best practices, etc.
8. Proposal focuses on your organization's need for money./Focus on your mission.

 
 
"How To Win Grants Series: Concept Papers" (2012)
https://www.tgci.com/video-webcast
 
Dealing with all the decisions and all the people involved=the purpose of the concept paper=provides a solid basis for argument.

Brief, 2-3 pages with enough detail to lay out the grant proposal

1. Identify Applicant Org
2. Funder
3. Amount to Be Requested
4. Funding Period
 
Briefly describe

1. Issues to be addressed
2. Assessment and planning areas
3. Outcomes to be achieved
4. Overview of methods
5. Overview of evaluation plan
6. Partner organization and their roles
7. Budget, including grant funds to partner organizations and contributions from partners

 
What's a letter of commitment?
 
 
"How To Win Grants Series: Letters of Commitment" (2012)
https://youtu.be/pF2t5jU0wBE
 
Letters of Commitment: When grant proposals describe resources that other organizations will commit to a program, letters documenting those commitments should be attached. The only reason not to is if the funder doesn't allow attachments.
 
Letters should demonstrate enthusiasm but also specifics about what the partner will commit to the project.
 
Don't attach the letter if...

• it expresses only vague, general support
• the support doesn't assist the program described in the proposal
• the source is questionable
• it offers no commitment of resources

 
Make sure it deals with the so what. In what way would the opinions in the letter enhance the program?
 
Unless they say no attachments, you do need to include letters that...

• document specific and meaningful commitments
• sync exactly with the proposal
• are enthusiastic and well-informed
• are signed by someone in a position to commit resources

 
How to Get Great Letters
1. Engage organizations that have compatible missions and are concerned about the issue.
2. Engage them in defining the problem and in figuring out what the program is going to look like and in planning the program.
3. Find out what resources they can offer, and do they require funds?
4. After you've agreed on the program and how it will function and what resources each will contribute and receive, confirm agreements through a concept paper.
 
3 Key Points

1. Don't expect one day turn around on letters.
2. Set a deadline for receipt. (Before you need it.)
3. Okay to draft letters for partner, but make sure that they are unique.

 
Timing is critical.

• Request letters as soon as the program design and budge are set.
• Give at least one week to provide letter.
• Incorporate time for revisions. (Be sure that the letter speaks accurately to the specifics of the proposal.)
• Set deadline for receipt at least a week before proposal submission deadline.
• Process can require 2-3 weeks.

 
 
"How to Write an LOI" (2016)
https://youtu.be/89_rRCONwc8
 
Letter of Inquiry/Letter of Interest/Letter of Intent
 
2-3 page or online form
 
Used as a screening tool to see if your intents align with the founding org's interests and to decide if they will request a full grant proposal
 
Sometimes it's all you submit and the funding decision will be based on it.
 
1. Always learn about a funder's requirements and follow their instructions. But many funders don't provide instructions. Therefore, they suggest using theirs:

1. Summary
2. Intro
3. Problem
4. Outcomes
5. Methods
6. Evaluation
7. Future Support
8. Budget

2. The squeeze is intense in online forms. When the squeeze is intense, usually problem, outcomes and methods are most important sections.

Sirc offers the box as a metaphor, or even a genre, that can supplant the essay in composition classrooms. He argues that by imposing a linear order to one's thoughts and feelings, the essay leaves out far too much, or maybe more accurately, it presents one's thoughts too logocentrically. The traditional essay forces students to focus on ordering their thoughts rather than exploring whatever complex or conflicting feelings that they have about a thing. I assume here that Sirc is referring primarily to the five-paragraph or theme essay and not to Montaigne's idea of the essay because Sirc's goals parallel Montaigne's. Both men depict composing as an individual journey shaped by whatever one encounters or finds bemusing. In that sense, they are both exploratory, alinear, and phenomenological/affective. Still, Sirc believes that the box allows for more personal associations to emerge among the objects or incidents one encounters. The box allows students to worry less or worry later about the association among the things they include in a box. Instead, students work as "collectors" and "designers" who assemble their writing from their affective responses to a thing. Sirc focuses particularly on pleasure. In some sense, Sirc means to encourage play and find a format that engages students on both an emotional and scholarly level. I appreciate that. What writing instructor doesn't? Still, I have a few problems with "Box Logic" that relate to how Sirc moves from theory to practice.
 
In the first half of "Box Logic," Sirc offers examples of artists and authors who used boxes to achieve their ends. He devotes most of his attention to Marcel Duchamp's The Green Box and The Large Glass, Walter Benjamin's description of unboxing his library, and Joseph Cornell's art in the 1920s and 1930s. There's a bit about George Maciunas, the founder of the Fluxus movement as well, but Sirc really only brings this in to bridge his argument about boxes to discussions of new media composing. That is to say, Maciunas receives the least attention. Much of the text parallels Sirc's argument about boxes by presenting a box: he strings together a number of block quotes and the text in between serves little more than making the associations among the quotes. Put another way, he lets his subjects speak for themselves at length, but he also weaves hem together to make his argument.  It's a witty strategy that displays how students might move from more rudimentary boxes to elaborate arguments. For example, if a student created a box about boxes, such a box might include Duchamp, Benjamin, Cornell, and Maciunas' work. Still, it's cumbersome and leaves a lot of unanswered gaps:
 
1. Sirc depicts the boxes that students create in composition classrooms as comprising notes and annotations. In that sense, they offer a more interesting alternative to something like annotated bibs or research paper proposals. Still, these boxes feed into traditional research paper writing. Sirc offers no real alternatives either in the theoretical section of his article or in the assignments that make up "Box Logic's" second half. He also ignores how students would move from these boxes to more cohesive arguments. I believe that he avoids this discussion on purpose. First, he's more interest in students developing their own symbology. Second, it would undercut his grander project of attacking "traditional" approaches to writing. In other words, he'd have to admit that at some point students still need to work consider the rhetorical situation. They aren't writing for themselves. If they are, if that is the goal, it's less worthwhile then acclimating them to writing for academe. At very least, academic writing teaches students that writing does something in addition to allowing one to explore his/her/their own opinions and thoughts.
 
2. Sirc's entire argument rests on his primary goal for composition courses: "to show [his] students how their compositional future is assured if they can take an art stance to the everyday, suffusing the materiality of daily life with an aesthetic" (119). I do not share this as a primary goal. I also do not find it justified or even particularly well articulated in "Box Logic."
 
In any case, I'm working in a new Freshmen Studies team at St. Edward's this fall called "Austin Then and Now." At St. Ed's, Freshmen Studies links a lecture course sections of fyc. The goal is to provide students with inter-, or maybe more accurately multi-, disciplinary approaches to a theme. We're still hashing out the details about our theme, but in general it is meant to introduce students to Austin and some of the issues pertinent to the city and the people who live here (e.g., cultural, economic, and political issues). In our initial discussions, our team addressed wanting to move away from traditional research papers while still teaching students about scholarly research. I reread "Box Logic" because I thought that it would help us rethink the research proposal/annotated bibliography and research paper sequence common to fyc curricula at St. Ed's. Initially I thought Sirc's "Arcades Project" assignment might stand in for the paper, but upon rereading his article, I am leaning more toward replacing the proposal/bib with a Sirc-inspired box assignment where students create websites to contain their thoughts throughout the semester. We're considering organizing the lecture around different themes like Food, Music, etc. Students would create individual pages on one site to explore theses themes and contain their notes from lecture and fyc readings. They'd also create a research-project specific page where they hone in on an aspect of one of these themes; they'd use the page to work toward a more formal project.  At this point that more formal project is up in the air, but students have an audience for their projects as the lecture comprises 3-4 sections of fyc; they can write to or for the students in the other sections as well as the students in their section. We've discussed having students share their projects through the lecture at the end of the semester.
 
I suppose that rereading "Box Logic" served some purpose in helping me consider a more engaging alternative to the container I use for certain projects, but it really hasn't won me over on the aestheticization argument. I think it falls apart in the face of considering how these assignments might relate to actual audiences and present students with rhetorical situations, but then, Sirc hates rhetoric, right?