Anyone who has traveled through a large metropolitan area is aware of the myriad of transportation problems facing urban America today. Urban transportation problems are highly visible and touch the lives of nearly every resident. Advanced technology strives to meet the increasing demand for more and better transportation, but instead if often creates more complex urban transportation problems than those it intended to solve. Although technological answers have, at times, contributed to the problem, the true source of the problem is people – their attitudes and demands. During the fifties and early sixties it was believed that we could build enough highways to handle demand and reduce congestion. Despite extensive highway construction we still are faced with congestion and the noxious consequences of automotive travel. Today inflation, air pollution and the energy situation dictate that we reduce transportation demand, especially in regard to the automobile. Urban planners, transportation experts and civic organizations are searching for ways to alleviate the transportation problem and plan for future needs. As metropolitan areas continue to search for answers to transportation problems, transportation planners and urban theorists are busy developing technological and humanistic responses to this increasingly difficult situation. Their knowledge and experience has been difficult to communicate to students by conventional instructional strategies. Therefore a simulation game format has been developed for use as an instructional and training technique. METRAPLAN, an urban transportation planning simulation game, explores both the transportation dilemma we face today and the alternatives which may shape urban transportation in the future.

Cette recherche traite de l'engagement en faveur de l'intérêt général, et notamment des modalités d'engagement des organisations mécènes auprès des organisations d'intérêt général, aujourd'hui, en France.Ce travail s'inscrit dans le cadre général des théories de l'action et plus particulièrement dans le courant représenté par les travaux de Boltanski et Thévenot sur la justification et l'engagement (Boltanski et Thévenot 1991, Thévenot, 2005), qui s'intéressent à comment les gens justifient leurs actions et à ce qu'ils disent de « pourquoi ils s'engagent ». Les études anthropologiques, sociologiques et socio-économiques sur les significations du don et sur les pratiques de mécénat, aujourd'hui, en France, nous ont fourni le socle de notre analyse.A partir de ces cadres de références, nous proposons un modèle qui rend compte des actions empiriques des professionnels de la collecte de fonds (les « fundraisers ») et des mécènes lorsqu'ils construisent un accord mécène.Ce modèle met en évidence les dispositifs et les objets dans lesquels s'enracine l'engagement des organisations mécènes. Il éclaire sur ce qu'est une action juste et légitime en faveur de l'intérêt général. Il propose un mécanisme permettant d'expliquer comment ces actions sont jugées par les parties prenantes des organisations impliquées dans un accord mécène.Nos recherches ont deux applications concrètes :1. Mettre en évidence les leviers actionnables par les organisations d'intérêt général pour collecter des fonds auprès des organisations mécènes.2. Enrichir la compréhension de l'engagement des entreprises en faveur de l'intérêt général. Mettre en évidence les bonnes pratiques et les retours qu'elles peuvent en attendre.Elles apportent une contribution spécifique pour comprendre la création de valeur dans le cadre d'une démarche marketing stratégique liée à la responsabilité sociale des entreprises, et au développement du capital social des organisations publiques et privées qui portent des projets d'intérêt général. / This research focuses on the engagement of organizations for the benefit of non-profit activities, today, in France.This work was conducted within a reference to the research of Boltanski and Thévenot on justification and commitment (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991; Thévenot, 2005) called “Economies of Worth”. This sociological approach of “action” tries to explain how people justify their actions and what they say about why they engage.From these frames of reference, we propose a model that reflects the empirical practices of professionals in fundraising and organisations involved in building an agreement around philanthropy.This model highlights the devices and equipment being used to build the agreement. It illuminates on what is a “fair and legitimate” action for the general interest. It offer a mechanism to explain how these actions are judged by the stakeholders of organizations involved in a patronage.Our research has two applications in management:1. Identify actions for non-profit organisations to raise funds from organizations who wish to involve in public good.2. Understand of business engagement for the public good. Highlight good practices and benefits that companies can expect of their commitmentOur work brings a specific contribution to understanding the creation of value in a strategic marketing approach of corporate social responsibility, and the development of corporate social capital of public and private organizations acting for the benefit of general interest.

Thesis advisor: Sharlene Hesse-Biber / Service-learning is an experiential form of education that moves students outside of the walls of academe to meet community-identified needs through the application and renegotiation of a set of theoretical and methodological skills. It is simultaneously a teaching strategy, an epistemological framework, and an educational reform movement. This research takes the form of multi-methodological case studies of service-learning classrooms and service-learning partnerships, examining the translation of feminist pedagogy to the service-learning experience. The voices of students, faculty, pioneers, administrators, and community partners articulate the common and uncommon struggles of teaching a new generation of students to learn and serve in agencies while simultaneously recognizing their own capacity for agency. This work provides evidence that applying feminist pedagogical principles to service-learning initiatives creates more meaningful transformations for our students, faculty, and communities. The interdependent Feminist Service-Learning Process posited here is an innovative framework for moving our students across the civic borders necessary for community engagement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Service-learning (SL) is a socially embedded and experience-based pedagogy that develops the link between theory and practice through community engagement. It fosters learning outcomes for students and benefits for community members. This thesis builds on recent applications of the pedagogy and advances our understanding of SL by studying a limit case of student autonomy in the absence of faculty intervention. Student-community and peer-to-peer relationships are particularly influential on students' lived experience if their interactions are unmediated by educators. This thesis firstly explores how students enact SL if left to their own devices. Secondly, by adopting a relational embeddedness perspective, it investigates the influence of student-community and peer-to-peer relations on participants' learning experience. An organisational (“at-home”) ethnography in a student-led social enterprise yielded insights into the two streams of research. The findings suggest that students' learning process consisted of a blend of emergent and deliberate micro learning processes that highlight the importance of - among other components of students' learning experience - role enactment, student autonomy, peer engagement, informal learning, and community co-education. With regards to the relationality of this limit case of SL, community and peer relations had an enabling and constraining influence on student learning. The findings further speak to the causality of such impact and suggest that the nature of inter-personal relationships determined the effects they had on students' experiential basis for learning. These findings contribute to the debate about the promise, effectiveness, and principles of SL in business and management education by problematizing student autonomy and faculty intervention. Moreover, this thesis responds to a gap in the literature and sheds light on the relationality of the pedagogy.

This research explores mentor outcomes of university students serving in service-learning mentoring relationships between university service-learning student volunteers and language minority student mentees. These outcomes are helpful in improving academic and personal progress for both the student mentors and the mentees. The mentoring relationships may be particularly important given the challenges facing an increasing number of language minority students in communities and schools today. Research indicates that student mentees perform better academically when mentors assist in their learning and growth. As part of the greater network of educational and community leaders, university administrators have the opportunity to create mentoring opportunities that effectively contribute to positive outcomes for both student mentors and mentees. The foundation of mentoring relationships is the nature and type of interactions that constitutes each mentoring relationship. The nature of these interactions may contribute to positive effects on the student academic achievement of student mentors and mentees. Universities provide both knowledge and human resources through service-learning experiences for student mentors that can create and sustain valuable mentoring opportunities. This research seeks to help university administrators and community leaders better understand the nature of mentoring relationships and identify the factors that are related to effective service-learning mentoring experiences with language minority students. This qualitative research used both survey and interview data to better understand the mentoring relationships and outcomes of university service-learning students. Factors such as cross cultural understanding, length of time spent in the mentoring relationship, and shared language were found from this research to have the most significant impact on service-learning mentoring relationships.

Colleges and universities use language (i.e., talk and text) to represent diversity and inclusion in community engagement. Diversity refers to individual and social or group differences (e.g., race, ethnicity, national origin, social class, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability), while inclusion is the intentional and ongoing engagement with difference. Community engagement involves collaborations between institutions of higher education and their local, regional, national, and global communities. The language used to describe diversity and inclusion in community engagement is socially constructed and situated in complex power relations. The purpose of the study was to describe how three universities use language to represent diversity and inclusion in community engagement. The primary research question asked: In what ways do colleges and universities use language to represent diversity and inclusion in community engagement? The study employed critical discourse analysis (CDA) using a multiple case study approach to examine language-in-use (i.e., discourse) about the connections between diversity, inclusion, and community engagement. As a theory and method, CDA offered a means to investigate how language constitutes reality, or in other words, is shaped by power relations and social struggles. Data analysis occurred in a three stage recursive process: description of text and its linguistic features, interpretation of messages underpinning patterns in language, and explanation of the relationship between texts and society. Language for the study stemmed from applications for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s elective Community Engagement Classification; individual interviews with two engagement actors per campus, or faculty and staff with dedicated responsibilities in community engagement efforts; and text from community engagement office web pages. The three participating universities received the 2105 first-time Community Engagement Classification, thus providing relevant text to examine language about diversity and inclusion in community engagement. Collected data included 312 pages of text across three cases and data collection methods. Study findings emerged from the three stages of analysis (descriptive, interpretative, and explanatory). At the descriptive stage, patterns in language use pointed to linguistic features of text relevant to the connections between diversity, inclusion, and community engagement (e.g., euphemisms to conceal negative action, “diverse” as a descriptor of groups or places, and “the” community as a singular entity). Findings at the interpretative stage focused on representations of diversity and inclusion revealed in patterns of language use. Representations depicted diversity as: a seamless “other,” a commodity, and a proxy. Representations also suggested inclusion as: correction, honoring, and a skillset. Moreover, explanatory level findings indicated four emergent discourse types underpinning the language of diversity and inclusion in community engagement, including managerial, promotional, oppositional, and specialist discourses. The four discourses also reflected ideologies, or taken for granted assumptions, of neoliberalism and White supremacy in higher education. The study offered implications for community engagement practice and opportunities for more transformational educational environments. The study also suggested future studies and applications of CDA as a reflective and action-oriented tool to interrogate language-in-use towards more just outcomes. Advancing research on the language of diversity and inclusion in community engagement is integral to creating institutions of higher education that better enable all people to thrive and engage meaningfully in public life.

The goal of this study is to determine issues rural Appalachian residents consider most important, their perceived environmental health risk, and how community engagement can potentially improve those issues. The University of Kentucky Superfund Research Center held the Appalachian Community Health and Well-being Forum at the Letcher County Cooperative Extension Office in Eastern Kentucky. A four-member panel consisted of two local health officials, a nutrition expert, and a federal scientist; answered questions from community members. The expert panel and audience members shared concerns, success stories, and highlighted efforts to promote health in the region. Community members completed a questionnaire collecting information on perceived environmental health risk, fruit and vegetable intake, and basic demographic information. The concerns raised by community members were chronic disease, poverty, pollution, mental health, and wellness. Proposed solutions were compliance, nutrition, physical activity, education, empathy, funding, community engagement, awareness, holistic health, prevention, and insurance/policy change. The programs in place to combat these issues are FARMACY, Community Health Workers, transportation services, mobile dental vans, Kentucky River Watershed Watch, research, policy changes, and the CLIK program. The questionnaire showed that residents are aware of the types of pollution in their community and believe that illness is caused by pollution in their environment. Community residents feel that pollution is not something they should have to live with, they act to protect themselves from pollution, and likely to engage in community efforts to stop pollution in their community.

Non-profits that do community-led food justice work with lower income communities face particular constraints and opportunities. This study examined those constraints and opportunities through participant observation of one such organization and interviews with four other organizations. Findings include the diversity of definitions for “community-led,” assets that can help or constrain the organization, and diversity in defining “scaling up” their organization models and missions. The organizations that heavily focused on lower income consumers noted tensions with the board of the non- profit and lack of engagement of consumers. I conclude by critiquing using language such as “models,” “scaling up,” or “replicating” when doing community-led food justice with lower income communities. I propose using the “scaling deep” framework (Moore, Riddell & Vocisano, 2015) and using Social Network Analysis as a tool for community development and developing alternative food initiatives with lower income individuals and communities.

Nisbet's theory of alienation entails three propositions: 1) alienation is a unidimensional phenomenon; 2) alienation is a generalized phenomenon; and 3) power relations foster loss of community which engenders alienation. All three propositions were tested on a population of graduate students at a university in the Pacific Northwest.

In Service-Learning (S-L) partnerships, universities and community organizations exchange resources and influence. Community engagement scholars Cruz and Giles proposed that relationships within S-L partnerships serve as units of analysis for the study of community outcomes of engagement. Yet, the scholarship of engagement lacks a suitable instrument to assess such relationships. This study brings together two lines of scholarship-relationship studies within community engagement and cocreational studies within public relations-to address the problem of assessing the community outcomes of S-L relationships, and it applies Cruz and Giles' ideas about using relationship analysis to assess community outcomes when it considers the perspectives of representatives of nonprofit organizations relative to their relationships with S-L students. Specifically, this qualitative study applies public relations theory to the problem of assessing project-based S-L relationships.