OSRHE : Campus Compact: About

ABOUT CAMPUS COMPACT

What Is Campus Compact?
Download the Oklahoma Campus Compact one-pager. (PDF, 46k)

Background
Campus Compact, based at Brown University, was founded in 1985 by the presidents of Brown, Georgetown and Stanford. It is a national membership organization of 682 college and university presidents committed to helping students develop the values and skills of civic participation through involvement in public service. Campus Compact's rapidly expanding membership includes public and private, two- and four-year colleges and universities, located in 45 states and the District of Columbia. To help serve the needs of the 682 members, Campus Compact has a network of 30 state-based Campus Compacts and a National Center for Community Colleges, all of which are affiliated with the national organization but are separate autonomous organizations.

Organizational Structure and Governance
Campus Compact has 17 full time equivalent staff, including an executive director and associate director and is based at Brown University in Providence, RI. It is governed by a volunteer 25-member board of directors, which meets twice a year to set organizational goals, priorities and policy. The president of Brown University sits on the board as a permanent member for as long as Campus Compact resides at Brown. The board composition includes 19 presidents, one to four public members and two representatives of the state Campus Compact offices. It represents an institutionally and geographically diverse group of colleges and universities, including public and private, small and large, rural and urban institutions.

What Do We Do?

Mission
Campus Compact is a national coalition of college and university presidents committed to helping students develop the values and skills of citizenship through involvement in public service. Member campuses are bonded together as a coalition, actively supporting presidents, faculty, staff and students to reach into the community, build partnerships and improve the social and economic well-being of American communities. It is the only higher education association whose primary purpose is to support campus-based public and community service.

Primary Activities
Campus Compact engages in the following types of activities:

Promoting presidential leadership: One of the primary goals of the Compact is to actively engage college and university presidents in local, regional and national dialogues on the role of higher education in renewing our democracy and increasing civic participation. This activity is interwoven into all activities and is specifically promoted through conferences, a national listserv, student interviews with presidents, bi-monthly updates to presidents, and personal interactions among the Compact staff, and board and presidential members.

National policy work: Campus Compact strives to promote community service through national policy and has a history of active involvement with the media, foundations and other organizations to bring national attention to the service movement. Compact tracks legislation and assists colleges in interpreting federal laws that impact service. The Compact staff serves on a number of national boards and commissions toward that end and works with other national organizations to promote mutual goals, co-sponsor conferences, etc.

Education and training for our constituencies: In 1999 Campus Compact expended approximately $100,000 for convening and sponsoring conferences, meetings, trainings, institutes, etc. This includes, for example, bringing together the board and network offices twice a year, conducting training institutes for faculty and national colloquia for college presidents, and sponsoring innovative initiatives that seek ways to define and provide benchmarks for quality partnerships between college campuses and the communities in which they reside.

Subgrants and awards to our member constituencies and our network offices: In FY 1999 Compact expended $615,000 in subgrants and awards. To assist Compact in providing education and training, it is sometimes able to offer grants to network offices so that they can sponsor regional workshops for groups of faculty, community service directors, deans and chief academic officers, non-profit organizations, etc. Compact also sponsors annual awards for both outstanding faculty and students (the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award and the Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award). All of these grants and awards are competitive and require either responding to an RFP, or in the case of the awards, a nomination/application process.

Over the past eight years, the Compact has awarded grants to hundreds of college faculty to assist them in integrating service into academic study, in setting up mentoring programs for at-risk youth and with research on the impact of service in the community, etc.

Network development: The Compact provides technical assistance to an average of three states a year that want to form a state-based office of Campus Compact.

Technical assistance in program development: The Compact provides technical assistance to member campuses, maintains an extensive Web site of resources, sponsors national listservs for presidents and community service directors, develops models of ''best practices," produces cutting-edge publications, conducts an annual survey of all member campuses, produces an annual 200-page publication filled with new trends, models and statistics about service, provides information on federal programs such as America Reads, America Counts and GEAR UP, produces a national newsletter, etc.