A Position for Supporting Teacher Educators' Engaged Scholarship in Rural Communities: Acknowledging and Rewarding Return on Investment

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Service and Support: Interrogating Structures of Engagement in Higher Education

Abstract

This conceptual paper presents the personal cost, time, and emotional labor of Engaged Scholarship for four teacher educators in a College of Education in a regional comprehensive university in rural east Texas and the resulting benefits their efforts yield for University and community. Their work typically takes the form of community-responsive teaching endeavors as a means of supporting the needs of multiple underrepresented K-12 student populations and modeling for PSTs how to effectively disrupt inequity in education. The paper posits that these endeavors, while valuable and endemic to their Engaged Scholar identities, should not be assumed or required without significant support from the University calling for the service-based scholarship which disrupts social inequities and reaffirms asset-based partnerships with their town.

Authors

• Lauren E Burrow, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Heather K. Olson Beal, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Amber Wagnon, Stephen F. Austin State University

• Chrissy J Cross, Stephen F. Austin State University