As part of Nebraska’s Land Grant University, faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to partner with communities for their research, creative activities, teaching, or service to contribute to the public good.
Faculty, staff, and students have a partner in Nebraska Extension as they look to engage with communities. Nebraska Extension serves all 93 counties through 83 county offices where fellow faculty deliver programming in eight program areas. They have expertise in the communities they serve and can help create the conditions for content and context experts to learn together and generate solutions (Attygalle, 2019).
Here are tips for partnering with Nebraska Extension to engage communities:
- Prior to visiting a community, please contact the Engagement Zone Coordinator (EZC) who serves that community. They can help connect you with resources in the community. You can find the EZCs here: Expertise & Personnel Directory | | Nebraska (unl.edu)
- The Engagement Zone Coordinators are not gatekeepers to communities. However, in smaller communities, the Extension professionals are often held accountable for all activities done by UNL personnel, regardless of if they are connected to Extension. Extension personnel like to know if you are visiting so they can be a cheerleader for you in the community, connect you to relevant resources, and help you avoid pitfalls, if possible.
- If you are putting together a research, grant, or service-learning proposal, include Nebraska Extension early in the planning process. Nebraska Extension have trained community Engagement Coaches that can lead the community aspects of your project, but they need to be brought in early in the planning process, and they will need to be part of the paid personnel. It is expected that they will be part of the project team and need to be at most project team meetings. If you would like more information on Engagement Coaches, please contact Jentry Barrett at jbarrett3@unl.edu
- Communities have long memories. Before your project, there have been many partnerships between UNL and that community. Some of these partnerships were successful, some were not. It is important to understand the history of UNL in the community. Nebraska Extension can help shed light on that history, and how to navigate relationships. An Engagement Coach has relationships with community stakeholders and members and will help broker new relationships between faculty and community members.
- Communities are interested in long-term partnerships, not one and done projects. It is important for faculty to understand that when collecting data from communities, the data belongs to the community, and faculty should return it to them in meaningful ways like reports, presentations, and newsletters geared toward non-experts. An Engagement Coach will help you structure your results with science communication in mind to deliver to the participants and the broader community. Faculty should also consider what is going to happen once their project ends. Have they created structures where community members can continue the inputs that were successful without the grant funding? Have you set communities up so they can apply for more funding?
- Faculty should consider where on the IAP2 Spectrum their project lies. “Engagement can range from information sharing, community development initiatives, to active participation in government policy development and decision-making processes” (www.capire.com.au). An Engagement Coach can help faculty brainstorm ways to move their project from the ‘inform’ side of the spectrum, to the ‘collaborate’ and ‘empower’ side of the spectrum. More information on the IAP2 Spectrum can be found here: Engagement Considerations
Please reach out to Jentry Barrett, jbarrett3@unl.edu, if you have any questions or would like to explore a partnership.
Definition of Community Engagement: 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. (Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education)
From the N|2025 website:
We are Nebraska. Engagement—the co-creation, co-discovery, and co-development of solutions—is key to the land grant mission of the University of Nebraska. Engagement brings Nebraska to the world, and the world to Nebraska through a university where students, faculty, staff, and alumni are actively engaged across Nebraska and beyond. It is imperative that the university embrace a culture of engagement and partnership that generates genuine mutual benefit both in Nebraska and across the world, while creating extraordinary opportunities for students, alumni, industry, community partners, faculty, and staff.
At its core, engagement is about relationships and reciprocity that must be build upon a foundation where every person and interaction matters.