From Rankings and KPIs to Empathy Ecosystems, Frontline Responders Ask How to Move the Needle on Campus Civic Engagement

“How can we convince universities who are not civically engaged at all to start adopting the civic engagement method, especially when they are in areas experiencing economic crisis, global warming, or war?” asked Rabih Shibli, Director of the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service (CCECS) at the American University of Beirut, during a recent webinar about “Lessons Learned in the Field” which he moderated with co-leaders of the Universities as Frontline Responders initiative.

Universities as Frontline Responders, supported by OSUN and the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities, is a collaboration steered by higher education leaders from around the world, seeking to encourage universities to lead as bold and nimble civic actors partnering with communities so they can respond swiftly and intelligently to unexpected or ongoing societal challenges.

Fifty participants attended the “Universities as Frontline Responders: Lessons Learned from the Field” panel, which was the group’s first meeting since October 2024, when they convened in Madrid with 50 higher education leaders from 22 countries to study the different “frontliner” models currently in use. They also released a critical call to action that encouraged higher education institutions around the world to develop ways to structure their research, teaching, and service practices to address urgent local issues. 

Panelists included authors of the Frontliner Call to Action, Samia Huq, Dean of the School of General Education and Professor of Anthropology at BRAC University (Bangladesh); Maheen Mumtaz, Manager of Community Services at the National University of Sciences & Technology (Pakistan); Erin Cannan, Vice President for Civic Engagement and Deputy Director, Bard Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College (US); and Jude Acquuah, Assistant Director for Outreach and Experiential Learning Programs at Ashesi University (Ghana). 

Responding to Crisis and Galvanizing Civic Engagement 

Speakers described the crises that sparked frontline responses on their campuses, including the important roles played by student participation and institutional buy-in. They also discussed the ways frontline responders might amplify their message and their experience to expand their network of allies to more urgently respond to critical needs within communities.
 
Since the publication of the Call to Action, campuses have experienced even more crises. Rabih Shibli explained that AUB’s Center for Civic Engagement emerged as a frontline responder when it provided crucial community relief during the war in 2006, throughout the Syrian refugee crisis in 2013, and after the massive chemical explosion that took place in Beirut in 2020. Since then, AUB has institutionalized the work by establishing a tiered pathway for leadership scaffolded over students’ four years, including the development of civic engagement course requirements.  The urgent work continued last fall when students built and ran temporary schools for people who were internally displaced following the recent conflict.

Similarly, Maheen Mumtaz, of NUST, said the severe challenges Pakistan faces, including climate change emergencies and economic and political crises, have led to impactful civic engagement and community development that the university is now institutionalizing. She referred to NUST’s “empathy ecosystem,” which includes civic engagement platforms that facilitate student community response work and a required community service undergraduate course with credit and field work that has become mandatory in all Pakistani universities. 

“Being a frontliner means being able to jump into the work in a moment of crisis,” said Samia Huq, of BRAC University in Bangladesh, explaining how BRAC U students’ role in the country’s July Revolution of 2024 galvanized the university’s commitment to acting as a frontline responder. The pro-democracy mass uprising was launched by a series of student-led, anti-government protests that morphed into a national mobilization and the eventual defeat of the country’s authoritarian regime.

“Our students jumped in and we felt pleased because the empathy and the desire to chart a future for the collective good is something that we believe had sunk in,” said Huq. BRAC U’s institutional response included enshrining a commitment to civic engagement by establishing a mandatory community action course and platforming student-led initiatives. 

How to Amplify the Civic Engagement Message?

Erin Cannan said that while civic engagement communities of practice (like this one) were successfully learning best practices from one another, it was important to ascertain how this “middle level” of responders could expand their influence by spreading their message to students and campus leaders on the “bottom” and “top” levels, respectively. 

“I think we need to understand better what each part of our community needs, and then develop the arguments and have the evidence there for each aspect of what is needed in the conversation,” said Cannan. She suggested that students might be motivated by being a part of social change and campus leaders might be interested in rankings. “How do we support each one of those parts of our communities to move the needle at our universities?” she said. 

Cannan also echoed the idea of institutional empathy mentioned by Mumtaz and Huq, saying it can serve as a form of infrastructure that links to not only academic work but also the community work done by students outside the classroom. She said it was important for responders to learn from each other about their emotional infrastructure so they could find ways to develop it in their own institutions.

Shibli stressed that developing key performance indicators (KPIs) for civic engagement work was critical when amplifying impacts of community  outreach. He also advocated for the use of rankings and ratings within academia as a means to acknowledge civic engagement, in addition to sharing best practices within a network.

Mumtaz agreed, saying that university leadership needed to advocate for accreditation bodies to include civic engagement activities in their rankings “so other universities can take notice of these centers and start to actually become frontline responders themselves.”

From the audience, Jonathan Becker, Director of the Center for Civic Engagement, Bard College, asserted that the quest for rankings can have the negative effect of  pushing universities toward research rather than civic engagement. Instead, in a time of greater skepticism of universities, “How do we approach the good work we do in a way that helps justify the existence of universities and our existence within those environments?” he asked. “Beyond rankings, how do we convince people that we, as an endeavor, are worthy of the support that we think we are.”

Cannan underscored the importance of universities continuing to build networks with partners as a practical means for scaling up their civic engagement work. She cited the success of OSUN and the Talloires Network offering online courses over the past several years to students who lost access to education during times of conflict or natural disaster. 

“We're interested in expanding the power of our network so it can be responsive on the front line and help us explore what it means to be a frontline responding institution in our own environments, learning from each other's examples," she said.

On Wednesday, April 30, Universities as Frontline Responders is sponsoring a panel discussion on “Leadership in a Time of Crisis: University Leaders Speak.” Learn more.

Post Date: 04-15-2025