Community Engagement Beyond the Buzzwords: Student Internalizations of the Land-Grant Mission

Abstract

The mission statements of land-grant institutions consistently describe their students as “engaged.” Beginning with an analysis of the mission statements of Midwestern land-grant institutions, this study discusses the results of a pre- and post-test of a subculture of undergraduate students enrolled in a course with a required community engagement component. The study assesses the dissonance or alignment of the ways mission statements describe students and the ways students describe themselves.