The Community-Engaged Scholars Program: Designing a Professional Development Program to Enhance Individual Capacity, Community Benefit and Institutional Support

Abstract

The University of Minnesota Extension’s Community-engaged Scholars Program is a competency-based, multidisciplinary, cohort-based faculty development program offering a “Learning Circle” grounded in adult learning theory paired with funding for community-engaged research. It aims to build capacity for community-engaged scholarship, catalyze institutional support, and benefit community partners. This special issue introduction describes the theoretical underpinnings, development, and implementation of the program and provides context for papers that follow describing the Learning Circle, participating scholars’ insights, and evaluation results.