Community-Based Research and the Faith-Based Campus

Abstract

Over recent decades a significant shift has been taking hold on campuses of higher education in Canada and around the world. It is a shift towards community engagement. In this article our focus is on the research aspect of community engagement, and explores how this shift towards community-based research is playing itself out on the faith-based campus. We provide examples of two Canadian faith-based universities (Crandall University and Tyndale University College & Seminary) who were involved in a two-year community-campus research partnership called “The role of churches in immigrant settlement and integration”. Reflecting on this experience we learned that, similar to other institutions of higher education, an intentional shift towards community-based research on the faith-based campus requires attention to both the internal and external drivers that support such a shift. We also learned that faith-based campuses have their own unique ethos and therefore have distinctive drivers that can be leveraged to support such a shift. While our learnings arise out of the experience of two participating universities, their applicability may be of interest to other faith-based campuses in Canada and elsewhere.