The development and expansion of engineering community engagement programs can be seen as part of a wider movement across academia to create both curricular and extracurricular experiences where students have opportunities to serve local and/or global communities. Such programs allow students to practice engineering in context while being a part of a larger community and providing service to others, thereby helping to bridge the gap between technical knowledge and its application. Yet, little research to date has focused on the experiences of the community partners, which is somewhat surprising given that their participation makes such programs possible. This study fills this gap by developing a richer understanding of community-university partnerships in engineering community engagement from the perspectives of academic programs and served communities. The specific research questions for the study are:

1. Why are individuals and local community organizations involved in engineering community engagement partnerships?
2. How does engineering community engagement program structure relate to the nature of the partnerships? 
3. What is the role of the project in community engagement partnerships?

A multi-site case study approach was used to address these questions, which included interviews with community partners, faculty, and program administrators at three engineering community engagement programs at three different U.S. universities, each of which maintains long-term domestic partnerships. These cases include: Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) at Purdue University, select U.S. project centers for Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Global Project Program (GPP-US), and the Community Playground Project (CPP) at Louisiana State University (LSU). Primary study participants were advisors, community partners, administrators and students (n=30) who are familiar with the partnerships and programs. From Spring 2011 to Spring 2014, I conducted semi-formal interviews with them about their experiences.

The findings for the first research question explore motivations connected to students, personal motivations, and organizational motivations. Most of the motivations found within this study are similar to motivations reported in other service learning literature.  The data analysis process for the second research question involved development and use of the Transactional, Cooperative, and Communal (TCC) framework for coding the data. The TCC framework categorizes program interactions and activities as: transactional, which increase the boundaries between stakeholders; cooperative, which attempt to blur the boundaries; and communal, which transcend the boundaries for a higher purpose. Additionally, six structural themes were found to influence the nature of the partnerships: program purpose and objectives, overall program structure, type of partnering agencies, characteristics of participating individuals, types of projects, and curricular component for students. 

This study can contribute in the understanding of different program structures for service learning partnerships, by providing a framework for engineering community engagement programs to consider their relationship with their communities while contributing to wider discourses on the ontology of engineering. It is my hope that the findings of this study can be used by community engagement programs to reflect on the desired nature of their own partnerships and make intentional decisions to structure their programs accordingly.