Community engagement--what is it?

At OSUToday I noticed a grant announcement for "community engagement."

Community Engagement RFA Deadline April 15

"Ohio State's Center for Clinical and Translational Science and the West Virginia Clinical Translational Science Institute Community Engagement and Research Program are jointly sponsoring a pilot research award designed to stimulate collaboration between the respective campuses as well as increase community engaged research, including community-based participatory research, in the Appalachian region."

So I started looking around--and what I found was a mountain of fuzzy definitions building in 2007 and 2008 which included words like "community concerns," "working collaboratively," "engage communities," "partnered and participatory research," and one definition even said "community engagement is not scholarship." On another site I found OSU's definition:

“Engagement is defined as a meaningful and mutually beneficial collaboration with partners in education, business, and public and social service. It involves using:

That aspect of teaching that enables learning beyond the campus walls;
That aspect of research that makes what we discover useful beyond the academic community; and
That aspect of service that directly benefits the public.”

So, based on OSU's definition, it's a way for faculty to complete teaching, research and service requirements without being in the classroom while receiving a federal or foundation grant, and also, if you Google "community engagement Alinsky" it's community organizing under another name (aka ACORN). Notice how Alinsky has been sanitized. It's a way to co-opt established groups that have had a long time mission to educate, feed, clothe and minister to people, and bring them into the government fold. Like churches, service organizations and non-profits.

Some definitions on the internet were so vague, even about the word "community," you really could use this grant money to research middle age Roman Catholic men who gather at Panera's for Bible study, or a condo association that wants the golf course to rip rap its side of the creek, or elementary students who want to play ball in the streets. The grants are quite toothsome.