Dr. Glenn Bowen, director of Barry University’s Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI), has been elected to the board of directors of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE). He will serve a three-year term beginning in September.
IARSLCE has more than 900 members. The association’s mission is “to promote the development and dissemination of research on service-learning and community engagement internationally and across all levels of the education system.”
Bowen has served as a proposal reviewer for the annual IARSLCE Conference and co-chaired the conference’s social justice track in 2015. In his board role, he will engage in planning strategies and programs to spur the growth of the association.
At Barry, Bowen provides strategic leadership for community engagement, encompassing faculty development programs, community-engaged scholarship and university–community partnerships. Holding the faculty rank of associate professor, he piloted the institutionalization of service-learning and created the Faculty Learning Community for Engaged Scholarship. His work has resulted in the annual recognition of the university on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll and Barry’s attainment of the prestigious Carnegie Community Engagement Classification.
Previously, Bowen was director of the award-winning Center for Service Learning at Western Carolina University. He is credited with expanding, enhancing and bringing national recognition to civic engagement at that North Carolina public university.
The author of “Reflection Methods and Activities for Service Learning,” Bowen has also published several book chapters on service-learning pedagogy and civic engagement practice. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in such publications as the “Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement,” “Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship” and “Journal on Excellence in College Teaching.”
A former journalist and public relations manager, Bowen was a two-term president of the Public Relations Society of Jamaica and was appointed by the nation’s prime minister to the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO. Additionally, he was elected to a five-year term on the executive committee of the Geneva-based World Federation of United Nations Associations.