Faculty members are expected to serve their department, their college, their university, their discipline, and society at-large - while at the same time - teaching high quality courses, and performing original, ground-breaking research that will lead to substantial external funding sources that will flow into the university. While this superman or superwoman may exist on some university campuses, it may be more realistic to envision a model where a department or a college has a mix of faculty members who - as a group - endeavor to achieve the high standards set by and for the university. In alignment with Boyer (1996) and Glassick, et al. (1997), creative activities and research should be more broadly defined using scholarship to allow for engagement of both students and faculty members. In order to meet the demands of competing (and oftentimes conflicting) requirements, an expanded definition of Service, Research or Creative Activity, and Teaching must be considered to include Service-Learning or Outreach opportunities to enhance the value of the faculty member's contributions to their chosen discipline. It is critically important to define how Outreach Activities (OA) can be used to feed and nurture the traditional P&T criteria in one or more of the primary categories. This paper will provide a working definition of Outreach Activities, in the context of Engineering and Technology disciplines. The authors will address the value-added role that Outreach Activities could play within a junior faculty member's P&T portfolio. Furthermore, a model will be described wherein faculty members could collaborate with industry representatives, government officials, and/or professional societies to define and enhance outreach opportunities for students and faculty. The proposed model could provide significant benefits to industry sponsors who participate in the model, to faculty members and students within the university system, and to the local economy where participating businesses and employees were located.
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