Administration
Associate Vice President for Outreach and Engagement
The Associate Vice President coordinates the implementation of the university’s strategic plan for advancing the engagement agenda across the MSU system. The Associate Vice President’s essential duties and responsibilities are:
- developing and executing a comprehensive strategy for engagement and outreach at MSU.
- developing a comprehensive compilation of engagement efforts across the university.
- identifying new initiatives and funding mechanisms supporting engagement fulfilling the land-grant mission of MSU.
- fostering a culture of engagement at MSU.
- developing pathways to appropriately recognize engagement in annual performance reviews and promotion processes for faculty and staff.
- working with stakeholders to identify needs that MSU can meet.
- building partnerships with academic and non-academic units across the university
- collaborating with senior leaders to integrate best practices into institutional programming.
- establishing effective modes of communication about the university's engagement plan.
- fostering collaborations across departments in engagement to strengthen outcomes for stakeholders.
- creating and implementing communications strategies and content management for training, web resources, social media and printed materials to support engagement.
- serving as an advocate, mentor and resource for concerns and issues related to engagement.
- collecting, analyzing, monitoring, and disseminating institutional data to benchmark and promote accountability for engagement.
- Engaging in strategic enterprises of the university to better understand the aims of such efforts and map to engagement efforts.
- identifying and networking with other institutions and organizations who have successfully executed engagement plans.
- leading the work of the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL).
The Center for Community-Engaged Learning (CCEL) supports the Mississippi State University mission of research, learning, and service by providing training to the university-wide community in community-engaged learning design, creating intentional opportunities for the advancement, production, and publication of research and coursework focused on the scholarship of engagement, obtaining and providing support for the adoption of community-engaged learning methodologies, highlighting university engagement efforts through assessment, evaluation, publication, and presentation, and becoming a local, regional, and nationally-recognized leader in community-engaged learning and community engagement efforts.
The CCEL provides learning opportunities for students outside the classroom by engaging them with external partners. This is provided through academic courses taught by faculty and staff in partnership with community organizations and businesses.
The CCEL also provides the Community-Engaged Fellows Program. This is a professional development program that provides an opportunity for selected faculty to integrate community-engaged learning into their teaching and research and while becoming recognized campus leaders in community-engaged learning pedagogy and community engagement. The program integrates the philosophy, pedagogy, and process of community-engaged learning into the MSU academic environment. The fellowship includes a faculty development award and monetary support provided by the Center for Community-Engaged Learning and the Provost and Executive Vice President, the Vice President of Research and Economic Development and the Vice President of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine.
