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© Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Volume 19, Number 1, p. 1, (2015)

Copyright © 2015 by the University of Georgia. All rights reserved. ISSN 1534-6104

Systemic Engagement: Universities as Partners
in Systemic Approaches to Community Change

Miles A. McNall, Jessica V. Barnes-Najor, Robert E. Brown,
Diane Doberneck, and Hiram E. Fitzgerald

Abstract
The most pressing social problems facing humanity in the 21st
century are what systems theorist Russell Ackoff referred to as
“messes”—complex dynamic systems of problems that interact
and reinforce each other over time. In this article, the authors
argue that the lack of progress in managing messes is in part
due to the predominance of a university-driven isolated-impact
approach to social problem solving. The authors suggest an alter-
native approach called systemic engagement (SE), which involves
universities as partners in systemic approaches to community
change. The six principles of SE are presented and illustrated
with a case example. Barriers to SE are discussed, and strategies
are proposed for increasing faculty use of this methodology. The
promises and perils of SE as an alternative community-engaged
approach to social problem solving are considered.

Introduction

T he most pressing problems facing humanity in the 21st century (e.g., climate change and social inequality) are not isolated problems, but what systems theorist Russell
Ackoff (1999) referred to as “messes”—complex dynamic systems
of problems that interact and reinforce each other over time. The
complexity of messes presents daunting challenges to our collec-
tive problem-solving capacities, let alone the capacities of any par-
ticular engaged scholar. In the context of calls to strengthen the role
of universities in addressing social problems (Boyer, 1990; Kellogg
Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities, 1999), it is
reasonable to ask whether prevailing forms of engaged scholarship
are capable of managing messes. In this article, we argue that the
lack of progress in effectively managing complex problems is due in
part to the predominance of a particular approach to engagement
called the isolated-impact approach (Kania & Kramer, 2011). In the
isolated-impact approach, universities and communities collabo-
rate to design and implement interventions that address a partic-
ular problem, with limited attention paid to the contextual factors
that perpetuate the problem. Such interventions, if designed well
and implemented with fidelity, may have strong short-term effects

2 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

within a narrow range of outcomes for targeted populations, but the
dynamics of the larger system that generated the problem remain
unchanged. In addition, isolated-impact efforts are frequently con-
ducted as stand-alone projects that are disconnected from other
related efforts, thereby failing to realize the synergies possible with
more coordinated strategies. In this article, we propose an alter-
native to the isolated-impact approach to problem solving called
systemic engagement (SE). We discuss the six principles of SE and
provide a case example to illustrate the principles. We then con-
sider barriers to faculty involvement in SE and how these barriers
might be surmounted to allow for the wider use of SE.

Systemic Engagement
Simply put, SE involves universities as partners in systemic

approaches to social problem solving. SE has six key principles:

1. Systems thinking
2. Collaborative inquiry
3. Support for ongoing learning
4. Emergent design
5. Multiple strands of inquiry and action
6. Transdisciplinarity

Although SE includes within its scope all community–univer-
sity partnerships that use systemic approaches to social problem
solving, the focus of this article is on SE within the context of place-
based initiatives, or what we refer to here as systemic approaches to
community change.

Systems Thinking
Systems theorists have argued that the foundation of systems

thinking is holism (Midgley, 2007), comprehensiveness (Midgley,
2000), or “taking into account the whole” (Burns, 2007, p. 21). In other
words, systems thinking involves a widening of the usual scope
of inquiry to include a larger share of the contextual factors that
contribute to messes. Imam, LaGoy, and Williams (2007) argued
that three systems concepts are essential for understanding sys-
tems-based interventions: boundaries, perspectives, and entangled
systems (or relationships). Because of the inclination toward com-
prehensiveness in systems thinking and the practical impossibility
of considering every influence on a focal problem, boundaries help

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 3

define what lies inside or outside the scope of a particular inquiry.
However, these boundaries must be placed carefully and provision-
ally, with a clear understanding of the implications of their place-
ment for what or whom is included or excluded from the inquiry
space. Systems thinking also involves considering the subject of
inquiry from the perspectives of a wide range of individuals with a
stake in managing the problem or from different perspectives on
the possible purposes of the system in question. Finally, systems
thinking involves an exploration of the key relationships among
system elements, between systems and subsystems, and how these
relationships contribute to the perpetuation of the problem.

Boundaries. SE expands the boundaries of inquiry based on
the understanding that complex problems rarely (if ever) arise from
the action of a single isolated cause. Rather, complex problems typi-
cally result from the interplay of relationships among several fac-
tors. In addition, problems rarely exist in isolation. Instead, they are
often subcomponents of dynamic systems of problems that interact
and reinforce each other over time (i.e., messes). For this reason,
Ackoff (1999) argued that “a partial solution to a whole system of
problems is better than whole solutions of each of its parts taken
separately” (p. 324). Based on these insights, SE expands the bound-
aries of inquiry to bring “whole systems of problems” within the
inquiry space of an initiative. For example, a systemic approach
to the study of child development, informed by Bronfenbrenner’s
(1979) ecological systems theory, would expand the typical bound-
aries of inquiry from influences operating within the child’s
proximate microsystem (family, school, neighborhood, and peers)
to influences operating in the child’s mesosystem (connections
between elements of the microsystem), exosystem (industry, social
services, neighbors, and mass media), and macrosystem (attitudes
and ideologies prevalent in the larger culture).

Perspectives. SE expands the boundaries of inclusion based
on the understanding that there is no single correct definition,
perspective, or understanding of problems or systems of problems
(indeed, whether something is a problem is a matter of perspec-
tive), and that those affected by problems should have a voice in
how they are addressed. Far too often university-based scholars
develop theory-based interventions for testing and dissemination
in communities, viewing communities largely as “passive distribu-
tion or delivery systems rather than as rich sources of knowledge
and skills” (Miller & Shinn, 2005, p. 169). SE pushes the boundaries of
inclusion to incorporate the perspectives of a broad range of both
community-based and university-based actors with a stake in the

4 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

problems, explicitly including both local and indigenous knowl-
edge and generalized university-based knowledge both in under-
standing problems and in generating solutions to manage them
(Fitzgerald, Bruns, Sonka, Furco & Swanson, 2012). SE strives to bring
these different sources of knowledge into respectful and appre-
ciative dialogue with one another for the purpose of cocreating
new understandings and codesigning new solutions to complex
problems.

Relationships. SE explores the relationships between sys-
tems and subsystems and among the components of systems to
reveal the complex dynamics that perpetuate the problem of con-
cern. Meadows (2008) argued that whereas changes in system ele-
ments (e.g., changes in the individual members of a social group)
typically have little to no effect on the functioning of a system,
changes in their interconnections will often have very large effects.
Consequently, a clear understanding of the relationships among
a system’s components is essential to restructuring that system
to produce different results. As Meadows (2008) has argued, “the
results that systems produce will continue until they are restruc-
tured” (p. 4). A systemic study of child development would explore
the structure of relationships both within and across micro-,
meso-, exo-, and macrosystems. For example, within the level of
individual children, it would explore the relationships among four
brain systems (executive, regulation, sensory, and relevance; Lillas
& Turnbull, 2009) while also examining the influences of factors
operating at the micro-, meso-, and exosystem levels on the func-
tioning of these same brain systems.

Collaborative Inquiry
Collaborative inquiry refers to the use of collaborative and

participatory approaches to research and evaluation. SE inten-
tionally solicits multiple perspectives on problems and relevant
systems by drawing on both local and indigenous knowledge as
well as generalized university-based knowledge to understand
problems and to generate strategies for managing them more
effectively. The methods of inquiry best suited to fostering deep
participation by people with a stake in particular problems and
utilizing both university-based and community-based sources of
knowledge for understanding and managing them are collabora-
tive approaches to inquiry and action such as community-based
participatory research (Israel et al., 2001, 2008; Minkler & Wallerstein,
2008), participatory action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000;
McTaggart, 1991; Whyte, 1991), and collaborative and participatory

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 5

approaches to evaluation (Cousins & Whitmore, 1998). In addition,
there are explicitly systemic approaches to collaborative inquiry,
including systemic action research (Burns, 2007), systemic interven-
tion (Midgley, 2000), and participatory system dynamics modeling
(Hovmand, 2014). Despite their differences, these approaches share
a commitment to involving community members at some level in
all or nearly all phases of inquiry, including identification of the
problem or topic of inquiry, selection of research or evaluation
questions, choice of research or evaluation methods, collection of
data, analysis of data, interpretation of findings, deliberation over
the implications of findings for further inquiry or action, and dis-
semination of findings.

Support for Ongoing Learning
In their review of the successes and failures of comprehen-

sive community initiatives, Kubisch, Auspos, Brown, and Dewar
(2010) recommended a new approach to the evaluation of com-
munity change initiatives that assists in planning, managing, and
learning. Instead of midpoint formative and endpoint summative
evaluations, community change initiatives require flexible, adap-
tive approaches to evaluation that produce findings in real time to
support ongoing learning and action. Recent frameworks for sys-
temic approaches to community change, including systemic action
research (Burns, 2007) and the ABLe change framework (Foster-
Fishman & Watson, 2011), are consistent with this imperative. Both
make use of ongoing cycles of inquiry and action, with evaluators
and researchers providing continuous support to learning teams.
Another systemic approach to community change, collective
impact (Kania & Kramer, 2011, 2013), embraces developmental eval-
uation, an approach to evaluation that is uniquely suited to com-
plex situations, and uses a flexible and adaptable design to support
the emergence of innovations (Patton, 2011). These developments
in the evaluation of systemic approaches to community change are
consistent with emerging trends in the larger field of evaluation
and reflect many of the characteristics of what Gopalakrishnan,
Preskill, and Lu (2013) referred to as the next generation of evalua-
tion, including (a) a focus on whole systems, (b) shorter cycles and
more real-time feedback, (c) shared responsibility for data collec-
tion and learning across multiple organizations, and (d) collecting
and using data as part of ongoing practice.

6 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

Emergent Design
Based on insights from complexity theory, SE recognizes the

degree of uncertainty and unpredictability inherent in the kinds of
complex dynamic systems that messes are, and therefore the lim-
ited utility of predetermined solutions or interventions (Westley,
Zimmerman, & Patton, 2007). Addressing messes requires a tolerance
for ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflict and a willingness to test
strategies whose results cannot be known with any degree of cer-
tainty in advance. Flood (1999) referred to this process as “learning
our way into a mysterious future” (p. 90). Borrowing a key principle
from systemic action research (Burns, 2007), SE supports the prin-
ciple of emergent design, in which the likely design, methods, and
measures are sketched out initially in very broad terms, with the
specific elements of the design emerging based on what is being
learned.

Multiple Strands of Inquiry and Action
Because messes consist of networks of interacting problems,

the effective management of messes depends on the mobilization
of multiple strands of inquiry and action, with each strand directed
at a particular problem within a larger mess. Any given SE ini-
tiative would therefore involve different teams tackling different
problems within the same mess. Consistent with this approach,
systemic action research (Burns, 2007), the ABLe change frame-
work (Foster-Fishman & Watson, 2011), and collective impact (Kania
& Kramer, 2011) call for the use of multiple strands of inquiry and
action to address complex problems.

Transdisciplinarity
Because complex social problems do not respect the bound-

aries of academic disciplines, SE calls for transdisciplinarity, or
the participation of multiple disciplines in addressing messes.
According to Rosenfield (1992), multidisciplinary research involves
researchers working in either parallel or sequential fashion on a
common problem, each operating from his or her own disciplinary
knowledge base. Interdisciplinary research involves researchers
working jointly on a common problem but with each researcher
operating from his or her disciplinary base. In contrast, transdisci-
plinary research involves researchers working jointly on a common
problem using a shared conceptual framework that draws from
multiple disciplines. Of these, transdisciplinary research holds the
greatest promise for “intellectual integration and the creation of

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 7

new knowledge at the intersection of multiple fields” (Stokols, 2006, p.
67). Because complex problems do not respect disciplinary bound-
aries, we argue that precisely this kind of new transdisciplinary and
transsectoral knowledge is needed to effectively address them.

Place-Based Efforts
Why the focus on place? Because place matters a great deal in

the life chances of individuals. Place influences the quality of the
housing in which we live; the quality of schools that our children
attend; the availability of nutritious food; access to safe spaces for
recreation; air, water, and soil quality; the availability of jobs; and
access to public transportation. Reviewing and synthesizing the
research on how the features of neighborhoods affect health and
contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in health, Roux and Mair
(2010) identified a wide range of neighborhood-level factors that
influence health, including residential segregation by race/eth-
nicity and class; features of neighborhood physical environments
such as environmental exposures, food and recreational resources,
the quality of the built environment, and housing; and features of
neighborhood social environments such as level of safety and vio-
lence, social connections and cohesion, local institutions, and local
norms. Given that place has a profound impact on the health and
life chances of people, working with people to transform the places
in which they live for the better is a primary goal of SE.

In sum, we believe that six key features of SE make it a more
promising approach to tackling the complex, dynamic systems of
interrelated problems known as messes than the isolated-impact
approach. In putting forth these principles, we are not making a
claim for their uniqueness. Rather, we are arguing that the act of
bringing them together in partnership with communities to address
complex community-identified problems is not practiced as widely
as we believe it should be for effective community-based manage-
ment of complex problems. In this article, we focus on SE as applied
to place-based efforts, or systemic approaches to community change.
Below, we provide a case example that illustrates the use of the six
principles of SE on a community-driven systemic change effort.

Case Example: Wiba Anung
Wiba Anung is a partnership between Michigan State

University, Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan, Bay Mills Community
College, and nine Michigan tribes that began in 2005. The partner-
ship focuses on supporting early childhood education research in

8 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

tribal communities and has been described in prior written work
(Fitzgerald et al., 2013). Wiba Anung was formed to address the
complex problem of disparities between American Indian/Alaska
Native children, other minority children, and White children in
early childhood education outcomes and the lack of early child-
hood research in tribal communities.

In this partnership, an organizational design emerged that
allows us to move forward in a way that aligns with each of the six
SE principles. This design consists of three types of teams: a part-
nership team, a leadership team, and communities of learning. Our
Partnership Team consists of community and research partners
who have an interest in working to address issues regarding early
childhood education in tribal communities. As shown in Figure 1,
members of the Partnership Team include community partners,
parents and caregivers, university researchers, and program staff.
The Partnership Team meets once or twice a year in person and
quarterly via phone when the initiative is engaged in ongoing plan-
ning and data collection. The Leadership Team consists of a small
group of researchers and community partners that meets a min-
imum of monthly (and as frequently as weekly) via conference call
to make decisions about the overall direction of the partnership.
Communities of learning (currently three) consist of smaller teams
of researchers and community partners who meet virtually or in
person monthly to move forward on a particular strand of inquiry.
Each community of learning is led by a research staff member or
faculty partner and typically involves meeting via conference call
or webinar.

Figure 1. Wiba Anung Partnership Team

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 9

Our Leadership Team has documented its progress in our
work together both formally and informally. To formally document
progress in building a strong partnership, we have conducted focus
groups regarding the functioning of our partnership. We are also
planning to conduct a social network analysis of the partnership in
order to better understand the structure of our partnership network
and the strength of the relationships we have forged. Informally, we
have ongoing discussions regarding how we are progressing. We
include the Partnership Team in discussions regarding how each of
our actions might be creating changes in other aspects of our work
together. Has our work to include culture in the classroom changed
how parents perceive the program? Are parents more likely to be
engaged? Do federal program officers perceive the program differ-
ently because of the work we are doing together? Finally, we have
also been gathering data annually on children’s academic school
readiness. Data have been collected in the fall and spring of each
year since 2008. Analyses are currently in progress, but preliminary
evidence suggests that over time, children are making greater gains
from fall to spring in numeracy and literacy skill development.

Systems Thinking
Boundaries and perspectives. Following the systems thinking

orientation toward holism, the Wiba Anung partnership has
explored the problem of disparities in educational outcomes by
expanding the boundaries of inquiry to encompass the tribal early
childhood context as a whole, acknowledging the importance of
the larger tribal community systems, early childhood education
systems, and family systems in the genesis of the problem. In our
work, we have drawn on the perspectives of a wide range of stake-
holders in the tribal early childhood context, including parents,
teachers, elders, directors of tribal-based early childhood pro-
grams, and university-based researchers. Each individual comes
to the table with a different perspective on “the whole,” making the
overwhelming task of examining our small slice of the early child-
hood context more manageable.

Relationships. Although we recognize it is not possible to truly
attend to all components and interactions of the multiple systems
that influence child health and well-being, we have established
mechanisms to examine the interactions within and across many
of these systems in our work. For example, in a PhotoVoice project
led by Nicole Thompson, tribal Head Start staff documented many
of the challenges and strengths in tribal Head Start programs, one
of which was how to support families to be engaged in their young

10 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

children’s education. Thus, in terms of the relationships dimension
of systems thinking, this project involved exploring the relation-
ships between family and tribal early childhood educational sys-
tems. In response to this identified challenge, our Leadership Team
formed a community of learning to develop an interactive seminar
that would support the efforts of home visiting, Head Start, and
child care staff to engage families in their young children’s edu-
cation in culturally meaningful ways (Barnes, Abramson, Burnett,
Verdugo, & Fillimore, 2014).

Collaborative Inquiry and Action
The Wiba Anung partnership has used community-based par-

ticipatory research (CBPR; Israel et al., 2008; Minkler & Wallerstein,
2010) as a guiding framework for collaborative inquiry and action.
We have included the larger partnership group in determining what
our research questions are, as well as how we go about answering
those questions. The Partnership Team has collectively made deci-
sions regarding the methods used and has participated in inter-
preting the results of all data analyses. For example, when deter-
mining how to measure social and emotional competence in young
children, our community partners reviewed three commonly used
research measures and determined which one of these measures
was most appropriate in their communities. Additionally, analyses
are always guided by either the larger partnership team’s questions
or by requests from the leadership team.

Ongoing Learning and Action
SE calls for flexible approaches to research and evaluation that

produce findings in a timely fashion to support ongoing learning
and action. Consistent with the CBPR approach described above,
our partnership is committed to producing findings that support
ongoing learning and action. As soon as data are analyzed, the find-
ings are shared with partners for their review and, as described
above, their interpretation. These findings always produce more
questions. Some require further analysis of existing data; others
require the development of a new strand of research. For example,
early in our partnership, we conducted focus groups with imme-
diate and extended family members of children who attended
Michigan tribal Head Start programs. During these focus groups,
a theme was identified that we did not expect: support for teaching
tribal language and culture in Head Start classrooms. Because of this
finding, our team conducted a focus group with tribal knowledge

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 11

holders to identify appropriate ways to incorporate tribal beliefs,
values, and customs into classrooms. As a result of this focus group,
our research partners obtained a much deeper understanding of
the indigenous ways of the participating tribes. For example, one of
the elders shared the Teachings of the Seven Grandfathers that have
been passed down to Anishinaabe people for many generations,
guiding the next generation in supporting children’s healthy emo-
tional, moral, and spiritual development. The Seven Grandfathers
are viewed as a collective grouping of seven interwoven teachings.
The English equivalents of these seven teachings are wisdom, love,
respect, bravery, honesty, humility, and truth. These teachings
directly relate to what adults should be teaching children, how
children should be treated, and how adults should treat each other.
Thus, it was very important for us to understand these teachings at
a deeper level as a collective to guide our knowledge and practice
of how teachers/staff and children should be interacting and how
we should treat each other in our partnership.

Emergent Design
Because of the degree of uncertainty inherent in tackling com-

plex problems, SE cautions against detailed, upfront planning and
predetermined outcome measures. Instead, following the princi-
ples of systemic action research (Burns, 2007), SE favors emergent
designs, in which the likely design, methods, and measures are
sketched out initially in very broad terms, with the specific ele-
ments of the design developing iteratively based on what is being
learned. From the very beginning of the Wiba Anung partnership,
we moved forward strategically by developing plans that allowed
for emergence. When we wrote our grant application, we identi-
fied the general strategies and approaches we would use to engage
our partners and jointly identify our research topics, questions,
methods, and products, but we did not identify specific topics,
questions, methods, and products, although these details are typi-
cally the foundation of a well-written research grant proposal. Our
proposal, however, was for building the foundation for a Michigan-
based tribal early childhood education research partnership. Once
we received funding, we set out to build that foundation, estab-
lishing a community–university research team that explored new
opportunities, both big and small. In the section that follows, we
illustrate how the principle of emergent design operated within a
particular strand of inquiry and action.

12 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

Multiple Strands of Inquiry and Action
In our partnership, we have always maintained three active

strands of inquiry within the larger problem space of disparities in
early education outcomes. As determined in our early partnership
meetings, these strands were (a) inclusion of Native language and
culture in the Head Start classroom (described above), (b) exami-
nation of children’s school readiness, and (c) understanding and
supporting effective teacher–child interactions in the classroom.
Each of these three strands includes several substrands or smaller
projects, allowing us to more fully explore each line of inquiry
and create appropriate action. We addressed the incorporation of
tribal language, cultural skills, values, beliefs, and life ways into
the Head Start classroom through three specific avenues. First,
by conducting focus groups with community partners and tribal
knowledge holders, we were able to learn about appropriate ways
to incorporate tribal language and culture into the classroom.
Second, we conducted surveys and observations in the classrooms
to identify how tribal classrooms are able to support young chil-
dren’s knowledge of tribal language and culture (Gerde et al., 2012).
Results from this study indicated that, although programs were
offering children opportunities to learn tribal language and culture
within the classroom, these opportunities were often disconnected
from curricular activities. Additionally, opportunities for learning
tribal language were generally limited to learning single words
or phrases. Using these findings, we then worked with collabora-
tors from tribal Head Start programs and the National Center on
Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness of the Office of Head Start
to develop Making it Work!, a framework that supports tribes to
create culturally based content for the classroom that connects to
the Head Start Child Development and Early Learning Framework
domains of early learning (https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/
tta-system/cultural-linguistic/making-it-work).

It is important to note that the main three strands of inquiry
and action within the Wiba Anung partnerships are not viewed in
isolation. We actively work together to explore how findings from
different strands are related. Our team has also implemented the
use of mirrored methods across different types of tribal early child-
hood programs to enable a more comprehensive understanding
of these themes from different perspectives. Specifically, the team
decided that common measures would be used by our Head Start
research team and our Home Visiting research team. By using the
same measures, we will be able to combine data across these two
research projects. In addition, we have been able to increase the

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 13

collaboration between these two programs, which are typically not
closely coordinated.

Transdisciplinarity
The Wiba Anung partnership has included university staff and

faculty from different disciplines (e.g., psychology, human devel-
opment and family studies, education, anthropology), parents,
teachers, elders, and directors of different tribal-based early child-
hood programs. In addition, faculty from nursing, kinesiology,
human medicine, and engineering have contributed their expertise
to the partnership, but not as formal members. To coordinate such
a large and disparate group, we formed teams of the three types
described above (partnership team, leadership team, and commu-
nities of learning). In addition, we conduct consultations in the
form of focus groups and key informant interviews with a broader
range of community stakeholders and tribal elders to obtain their
guidance and advice as we move forward with our work.

In sum, the Wiba Anung case demonstrates in concrete terms
the application of the six principles of SE within a successful com-
munity–university research partnership that has yielded scholarly
products, enhancements to tribal early childhood education sys-
tems, and stronger connections between tribal educational and
family systems. Preliminary results indicate that this partnership
has also produced improvements in early childhood education out-
comes among American Indian/Alaska Native children. In light
of this successful case, we now turn our attention to some of the
barriers university-based faculty, staff, and students are likely to
experience in practicing the principles of SE.

Barriers to Implementing Systemic Engagement
Given the apparent promise of SE, it is reasonable to ask why

its principles are not more widely deployed in university–commu-
nity partnerships. To provide a partial answer to this question, we
briefly review the literature on the barriers to faculty engagement
in general and SE in particular to understand why the principles
of SE are not more widely used to address complex problems in
partnership with communities.

Barriers to Engagement
Most barriers associated with faculty engagement are located

in five domains: personal, professional, communal, institutional

14 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

(Demb & Wade, 2012), and logistical (Demb & Wade, 2012; Hammond,
1994).

Personal domain. The personal domain encompasses indi-
vidual attributes such as race/ethnicity, gender, personal values,
motivation, epistemology, and experience (Demb & Wade, 2012).
Although the influence of race/ethnicity and gender on faculty
engagement is unclear (O’Meara, Sandmann, Saltmarsh, & Giles, 2011),
personal values that prioritize the intrinsic rewards of engage-
ment over the extrinsic rewards of professional accomplishment,
motivation to accomplish social change versus enhancing one’s
professional status, and a humanistic rather than an exclusively
intellectual orientation are associated with higher levels of faculty
engagement (Demb & Wade, 2012). Therefore, recruiting engaged
scholars with value stances that are associated with higher levels of
engagement and developing a new generation of engaged scholars
that possess such value stances will be essential to the widespread
use of the principles of SE.

Professional domain. The professional domain includes such
elements as a faculty member’s tenure status, rank, length of time
in academe, and professional orientation (Demb & Wade, 2012). In
general, senior faculty discourage junior untenured faculty from
participating in engagement activities, counseling them instead
to focus their efforts on research activities that will quickly yield
publications in top-tier disciplinary journals (Demb & Wade, 2012;
Jaeger & Thornton, 2006; Sandmann, Saltmarsh, & O’Meara, 2008; Weerts
& Sandmann, 2008). Consequently, tenured faculty are more likely to
participate in engagement than untenured faculty and if untenured
faculty are engaged, they are more likely to be teaching a service-
learning course than conducting community-based research (Jaeger
& Thornton, 2006). Although an increasing number of journals are
devoted to publishing engaged scholarship (Franz, 2011), publica-
tion in such journals does not garner the same degree of recog-
nition or reward as publication in disciplinary journals (Sobrero
& Jayaratne, 2014). Consequently, the challenge for the engaged
scholar is to produce scholarly products worthy of publication in
both disciplinary and engagement-oriented journals.

Communal domain. The communal domain refers to the
degree of support for engagement in graduate socialization, profes-
sional communities, academic disciplines, and departments (Demb
& Wade, 2012). Much of graduate education “emphasizes competi-
tive individualism, without attention to the consequentiality of
research for public purposes” (O’Meara, 2011, p. 185). Graduate
socialization also tends to favor traditional forms of scholarship

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 15

(Jaeger & Thornton, 2006). As a consequence, new faculty members
may arrive on campus lacking the “knowledge, skills, or values ori-
entation needed for engagement” (Sandmann et al., 2008, p. 50). As we
will see later, many new faculty will also lack the knowledge, skills,
and value orientation necessary for SE.

Faculty engagement varies significantly by discipline. Whereas
the most highly engaged faculty are found in the disciplines of
social work (Demb & Wade, 2012), education (Demb & Wade, 2012;
Doberneck, Glass, & Schweitzer, 2012; O’Meara et al., 2011), human
ecology, food sciences (Demb & Wade , 2012), forestry (O’Meara et
al., 2011), agriculture (Demb & Wade, 2012; Doberneck et al., 2012;
O’Meara et al., 2011), environmental sciences (Demb & Wade, 2012),
and health sciences (Doberneck et al., 2012; O’Meara et al., 2011), the
least engaged faculty are found in the science, technology, engi-
neering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines (Demb & Wade, 2012;
O’Meara et al., 2011); humanities (Demb & Wade, 2012; O’Meara et al.,
2011); and English (O’Meara et al., 2011). Oddly enough, whereas
O’Meara et al. (2011) reported that faculty in the social sciences
were among the most highly engaged, Demb and Wade (2012)
found that faculty in the social and behavioral sciences were among
the least engaged. These contradictory results may be an artifact of
differences between the studies in which disciplines were included
in the categories of social and behavioral sciences. Nevertheless,
the results overall suggest that additional work must be done to
foster engagement in those disciplines in which engagement is
less frequently practiced. After all, consistent with the principle of
transdisciplinarity, it is desirable to have all disciplines that pos-
sess knowledge relevant to the effective management of a complex
problem involved in an SE effort.

The reality for most faculty members is that engagement is
not highly valued in the hiring, retention, promotion, and tenure
(HRPT) process, even when policies are in place to reward engage-
ment (Jaeger & Thornton, 2006; O’Meara, 2011). Furthermore, faculty
who serve on HRPT committees are often unprepared to assess the
quality of engaged scholarship (Jaeger & Thornton, 2006; Sandmann et
al., 2008; Weerts & Sandmann, 2008) and have limited understanding
of standards and metrics appropriate for evaluating engaged schol-
arship (Sandmann et al., 2008; Sobrero & Jayaratne, 2014). Even where
standards and metrics of excellence in engaged scholarship have
been established, senior faculty may resist using them during the
HRPT process (Jaeger & Thornton, 2006).

Institutional domain. The institutional domain includes such
elements as institutional mission, institution type, and engage-

16 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

ment structures (Demb & Wade, 2012). O’Meara et al. (2011) found
that faculty perceived institutional commitment to engagement to
be higher at 2-year colleges, public 4-year colleges, and Catholic
4-year colleges than at other types of institution. In addition, a
comparative study of land-grant and urban research universities
found that “land-grant universities struggle more than their urban
counterparts to institutionalize engagement language and practices
across their campuses” (Weerts & Sandmann, 2008, p. 86). However,
this study contained a very small sample of three land-grant insti-
tutions, and much has changed in the field of engagement since the
study was conducted. The extent to which these findings are true of
land-grant institutions today is unclear.

Many institutions of higher education have institutionalized
their support for engagement by establishing internal structures
with dedicated engagement staff. Some institutions have central-
ized their engagement structures in institution-level offices, and
others have implemented a distributed model of engagement,
dispersing engagement functions and staff throughout colleges
and departments. There is no consensus on the preferred model;
each possesses distinct advantages and disadvantages (Weerts &
Sandmann, 2008).

In their study of engagement at six public research universi-
ties, Weerts and Sandmann (2008) found that “engagement work
was typically led by academic staff, not traditional tenure-track
faculty. Instead, faculty were more likely to assume the role of con-
tent expert or researcher alongside the academic staff who were
facilitating the engagement projects” (Weerts & Sandmann, 2008, p.
91). In other words, engagement staff provide a critical bridging
or boundary-spanning (Williams, 2002) function within univer-
sity–community engagement efforts. They also lower the costs of
engagement to faculty by assuming responsibility for time-con-
suming efforts to establish and nurture university–community
partnerships and coordinate engagement activities, allowing fac-
ulty to maintain a focus on the elements of engaged work most
relevant to their scholarship.

Logistics. Community engagement faces an additional set
of challenges related to the coordination of people and tasks and
the additional time this coordination takes (Demb & Wade, 2012;
Hammond, 1994). Although one should not underestimate the logis-
tical challenges of operating a busy university-based laboratory,
engagement multiplies the logistical challenges by requiring the
coordination of people and tasks within universities, within com-
munities, and between universities and communities. Engagement

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 17

also often entails protracted negotiations between university faculty
and community partners around the focus of a particular project
as well as project procedures, personnel, facilities, and resources.
Because it often involves multiple strands of linked activities,
the logistical demands of SE are even more acute. Consequently,
university-based structures and resources, including dedicated
engagement staff as well as corresponding engagement structures
and resources within communities and between universities and
communities, will be critical to making SE a reality, meaning that
SE is most likely to succeed where universities have the capacity to
provide these structures and resources.

Barriers to Systemic Engagement
The second set of barriers to engagement are those associated

with the principles of SE. Challenges related to the first four princi-
ples—systems thinking, collaborative inquiry, support for ongoing
learning, and emergent design—stem from the lack of knowledge,
interest, and skill among faculty, staff, and students in using what
may be unfamiliar approaches to research and evaluation. In other
words, the challenges associated with the first four principles are in
part related to a set of competencies specific to SE that faculty, staff,
and students may not possess in full measure. Although the com-
plete specification of these competencies and the kinds of training
that would be required to prepare a cadre of “systemic engagers”
is beyond the scope of this article, spelling out these competencies
more fully will be essential to the implementation of SE.

Challenges related to the last two principles of SE—multiple
strands of inquiry and action and transdisciplinarity—are in part
logistical, requiring coordination, communication, and research/
evaluation support across multiple strands as well as various dis-
ciplines and sectors. The collective impact (Hanleybrown, Kania, &
Kramer, 2012; Kania & Kramer, 2011) solution to this logistical chal-
lenge is the establishment of an independent community-based
backbone organization and cascading levels of linked collabora-
tion. Backbone organizations provide strategic direction; facilitate
dialogue between partners; and support data collection and anal-
ysis, communications, and community outreach. Cascading levels
of linked collaboration involve the establishment of multiple inde-
pendent working groups formed around different leverage points
or strategies. Although these groups work independently, their
efforts are coordinated by the backbone organization, allowing
several different teams to simultaneously address different dimen-
sions of a complex issue or problem. In the Wiba Anung case,

18 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

the collective efforts of a diverse set of community and university
partners were coordinated through the organizational structure of
a small leadership team, a larger partnership team, and multiple
communities of learning. One university-based solution to pro-
moting transdisciplinarity is reflected in the proliferation of trans-
disciplinary research centers and institutes on campuses (Cooper,
2011; Etzkowitz, 2008; Hall et al., 2008) that have been established to
promote the growth of new knowledge at the intersections of mul-
tiple disciplines.

Another challenge related to collaboration across strands, dis-
ciplines, and sectors is related to the difficulty of developing and
carrying out coordinated plans of action among a group of actors
with varying understandings of a focal problem, different inter-
ests, and competing agendas. Wicked problems (Batie, 2008) are
characterized by high levels of value conflict among stakeholders
and high levels of uncertainty about the likely consequences of
implementing any particular strategy to manage them. In such
circumstances, it is essential to reduce value conflict to allow the
emergence of strategies that can be supported by a majority of
stakeholders. Consequently, knowledge of and skill in using tech-
niques that enable a diverse set of actors to arrive at a common
plan of action, such as strategic assumption surfacing and testing
(Williams & Hummelbrunner, 2009), are essential for the success of
any SE initiative.

Discussion
In this article, we proposed an alternative to the university-

driven isolated impact approach to community change—systemic
engagement (SE)—and described its six principles:

1. Systems thinking
2. Collaborative inquiry
3. Support for ongoing learning
4. Emergent design
5. Multiple strands of inquiry and action
6. Transdisciplinarity

Next, we illustrated the application of the six principles of SE
with a case example. We then discussed barriers to faculty engage-
ment in general and systemic engagement in particular, briefly
remarking on the changes that would be necessary to make the

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 19

widespread deployment of SE a reality. We discuss those changes
and their implications more fully here.

Overall, the literature on barriers to engagement suggests that
SE faces significant headwinds. Beginning in graduate school, future
faculty in many disciplines are schooled in a competitive, individu-
alistic model of private scholarship (O’Meara, 2011) that favors tra-
ditional discovery-oriented scholarship over engaged scholarship
and values traditional epistemologies over epistemologies that are
open to practice-based or indigenous sources of knowledge. When
they arrive on campuses, new faculty members are often discour-
aged by senior faculty from pursuing community engagement.
When their scholarly portfolios are reviewed for reappointment,
promotion, or tenure, less value is placed on their engaged work—
in spite of university missions and policies that explicitly support
engagement. Despite these headwinds, countless engaged faculty
have persevered to achieve successful careers. Many of these faculty
may have strong personal commitments to engaged scholarship.
Some may have been trained in disciplines that value engagement
and teach graduate students the knowledge and skills to succeed as
engaged scholars. Others are fortunate enough to find supportive
mentors among senior engaged faculty. Still others may work at
universities that provide structures, resources, and rewards that
support engagement. In addition, as O’Meara (2011) points out,
the community engagement movement has achieved three signifi-
cant accomplishments during the last two or three decades. First,
faculty civic engagement has simply increased. More institutions
of higher education have made commitments to engagement, the
number of faculty who report engagement has increased, and the
number and range of engagement opportunities for students has
expanded. Second, faculty civic engagement has made inroads into
disciplinary associations and has established a research base. Third,
greater attention has been paid to creating the structures and pro-
cesses necessary to support the engagement of faculty, students,
and institutions.

Despite these accomplishments, scaling up SE will require
changes at the individual, disciplinary, departmental, and institu-
tional level. At the individual level, it will require that faculty achieve
a balance between being oriented toward doing good versus doing
well, a humanistic versus an exclusively intellectual orientation,
and an openness to alternative ways of knowing (including prac-
tice-based and community-based/indigenous knowledge) versus a
strict adherence to postpositivist epistemology. It will also require
increased understanding of, interest in, and skill in using (a) sys-

20 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

tems approaches and methods; (b) collaborative and participatory
approaches to inquiry and action; and (c) flexible and adaptable
approaches to research and evaluation that promote learning and
action in real time among faculty, staff, and community members.
In addition, it will require increased understanding among faculty,
staff, and community members of the realities of operating in com-
plex environments and increased knowledge of effective strategies
to mitigate the risks that are entailed. Finally, it will require that
faculty have enough experience with SE (or exposure to sufficiently
convincing case examples of SE) to appreciate SE’s contribution
to improved understanding and resolution of complex problems.

At the disciplinary level, scaling up SE will require graduate
socialization that communicates to students that engagement is a
valued part of their discipline, and graduate training in the knowl-
edge and skills required to be successful engaged scholars. At the
departmental level, scaling up SE will require policies, procedures,
metrics, and faculty evaluation systems that recognize and reward
quality engaged scholarship; the application of those policies, pro-
cedures, and metrics in hiring, reappointment, promotion, and
tenure decisions; and the mentoring of junior faculty by engaged
senior faculty in how to succeed as engaged scholars.

At the institutional level, scaling up SE will require missions
that support community engagement; policies, practices, and pro-
cedures to reward and celebrate engagement; supportive internal
structures with dedicated engagement staff to serve in bridging/
boundary-spanning roles and to assist faculty in managing the
logistical complications of SE; and internal seed funding for
engaged scholarship.

The preceding list of requirements for SE is daunting, but
as Tainter (1990) has demonstrated, the effective management
of increasingly complex problems requires increasing resource
inputs. As the problems facing communities in the 21st century
grow in number and complexity, it will be necessary to make dif-
ficult choices about which complex problems to tackle and which
to leave for a later day. Such choices must be guided by our best
understanding of which problems are most fundamental; which
problems are more cause than symptom; and which problems, such
as growing inequality in income and wealth (Wilkinson & Pickett,
2011), are at the bottom of many other problems. In addition, we
should devote sufficient resources to the efforts to ameliorate such
complex problems, including the selection of an approach that is
suited to taming them. We believe that SE is one such approach.

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 21

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our deep gratitude to Ann
Belleau and Lisa Abramson of the Inter-Tribal Council
of Michigan for their patient guidance, enthusiastic
encouragement, and useful critiques of the Wiba Anung
case example. We also thank Nicole Thompson of
Memphis State University and Hope Gerde of Michigan
State University for their ongoing involvement in the
Wiba Anung partnership. Finally, we wish to thank Robin
Lin Miller for reading several drafts of this article and
offering her thoughtful critiques.

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About the Authors
Miles A. McNall is the director of the Community Evaluation
and Research Collaborative in the office of University Outreach
and Engagement at Michigan State University. His research
interests include promising practices in community–univer-
sity partnerships and approaches to collaborative inquiry that
facilitate ongoing learning, innovation, and collective action. He
received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Minnesota.

Jessica V. Barnes-Najor is the associate director of the
Community Evaluation and Research Collaborative in the
office of University Outreach and Engagement at Michigan State
University. Her current research interests include collaborative
approaches to building and supporting research networks with
American Indian and Alaska Native early childhood education
programs, cultural alignment of research measurement, and
supporting young children’s development through high-quality
interactions. She received a Ph.D. in psychology from Michigan
State University.

Robert E. Brown is the associate director of the Center for
Community and Economic Development in the office of
University Outreach and Engagement at Michigan State
University. His current work includes collaborative approaches
to building and supporting community/university systemic
action networks that combine scientific and local knowledge to
manage complex problems confronting legacy cities. He received
his master’s degree in public administration from Western
Michigan University.

Systemic Engagement: Universitities as Partners in Systemic Approaches to Community Change 25

Diane M. Doberneck is the assistant director of the National
Collaborative for the Study of University Engagement in the
office of University Outreach and Engagement at Michigan State
University. Her research interests include community-engaged
scholarship in reappointment, promotion, and tenure and pro-
fessional development for community engagement. She received
her Ph.D. in resource development at Michigan State University.

Hiram E. Fitzgerald is the associate provost for university out-
reach and engagement and University Distinguished Professor
in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University.
His research interests include the study of infant and family
development in community contexts, the impact of fathers on
early child development, implementation of systemic commu-
nity models of organizational process and change, the etiology
of alcoholism, and broad issues related to the scholarship of
engagement. He received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology
from the University of Denver.

26 Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement