The Kansas Campus Compact has announced the selection of four distinguished faculty members from Kansas colleges as 2012 Engaged Faculty Fellows.  Cheryl Rude from Southwestern College is one of the selections.  Rude and the other three recipients each will receive a $6,000 grant to support efforts to integrate service-learning and civic-engagement into their teaching and research.

Rude is currently engaged in leadership development at Southwestern College as associate professor and division chair of the social sciences. Her award-winning program of leadership education for undergraduate students includes community involvement labs and academic rigor in the classroom.

She also directs the master of science in leadership studies program, which provides knowledge and coaching for persons across a wide spectrum of employment and volunteer positions. Rude facilitates workshops and training for student groups and professional associations. She also develops and publishes leadership education curriculum. Her areas of interest and expertise are the pedagogy of service learning and youth and young adult leadership development.

“I feel honored to be able to add my voice to the research team in hopes of making a positive contribution to the field of service-learning,” Rude says. “I am also pleased to help my own institution move forward in recognizing faculty efforts in service learning in a meaningful way.”

The other 2012 Engaged Faculty Fellows include Jean Gleichsner, associate professor of agriculture at Fort Hays State University; Vibhavari Jani, associate professor of interior architecture and product design at Kansas State University; and Dustin Wilgers, assistant professor of biology at McPherson College.

The 2012 Engaged Faculty Fellows will collaborate on research addressing the challenges and most effective mechanisms for including civic and community engagement efforts in higher education’s systems for promotion and recognition of faculty and staff.  In addition, each Engaged Faculty Fellow will each develop and implement a university-level class that incorporates some element of engaged pedagogy, such as service-learning of community-participatory research, and actively serve as a champion for service-learning and community engagement on their campus and state-wide.  This is the second year of the Kansas Campus Compact’s Engaged Faculty Fellows program.

Headquartered in Manhattan, the Kansas Campus Compact is a coalition of twelve higher education institutions committed to strengthening integration of civic service and community engagement into the higher educational experience throughout Kansas.