Diane M. Doberneck, Ph.D., is the director for Faculty and Professional Development, Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship, University Outreach and Engagement (UOE), Michigan State University. She provides leadership for UOE’s faculty and staff professional development programs for graduate students, post-docs, academic staff, tenure-track faculty, administrators, and community partners. Programming under her leadership spans a continuum of low, mid, and high involvement learning opportunities; includes virtual resources and workshops; emphasizes diversity, equity, and inclusion; is informed by and generative of scholarship.
Diane leads MSU’s signature program on professional development for community engagement. The Graduate Certification in Community Engagement is in its 16th year. The weeklong Summer Intensive on Community-Engaged Scholarship is specifically for faculty, academic staff, Extension professionals, and post-docs, as are two learning communities on service-learning and feminist community-engaged research. With the Writing Center, Doberneck offers monthly write-ins, publishing workshops, writing retreats, and individual consultations to support writing and publishing, an essential academic success skill for community-engaged researchers, artists, teachers, and practitioners.
To inform professional development programming, Doberneck conducts research about faculty and staff competencies related to broader impacts and graduate student competencies related to community engagement. Her research interests have also included the incorporation of community engagement in reappointment, promotion, and tenure; faculty integration of outreach and engagement across their teaching, research, service, and administrative responsibilities; and career pathways for community-engaged scholars.
Nationally, Doberneck champions excellence in community engagement. She chairs the nationally competitive Emerging Engagement Scholars Workshop, speaks regularly at the Pen to Paper Academic Writing Retreat, is currently a Campus Compact Fellow writing the introductory module for the Community Engagement Competency Program, and has recently concluded a co-editorship of a special issue of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement about boundary-spanners. She also consults with colleges and universities on institutional change supportive of community engagement; revisions to reappointment, promotion, and tenure policies to support community engagement; publishing community-engaged scholarship; graduate education, and professional development for community engagement.
Doberneck was recently promoted to senior continuing academic specialist, the highest rank in her job classification at Michigan State. She also holds an adjunct associate professor appointment in the Department of Community Sustainability and is an affiliated faculty member with the GenCen, the Diversity Research Network, and the Center for Interdisciplinarity. In 2020, she was awarded the university-wide Distinguished Academic Staff Award for her professional accomplishments. In 2024, she was honored with Michigan Sea Grant Extension’s Van Snider Award for Distinguished Partnerships.
Recent Publications
Clites, E., Triezenberg, H.A., & Doberneck, D. M. (2024). Aligning audience needs with scientists’ information in the complex harmful algal bloom outreach to engagement continuum. Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 181, 1-10.
Doberneck, D. M., Warwick A., Avers, B. & Pomeranz, E. (2023). The Co-development of Community Engagement Certificate Programs for State Agency Professionals: A University-State Agency Partnership for Statewide Impact. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement.
Doberneck, D. M. (2022). Summer Intensive on Community-Engaged Scholarship: Generative tensions and future directions for professional development. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship 15(1). DOI: 10.54656/jces.v15i1.483
Carson, M. A., Doberneck, D. M., Hart, Z., Kelsey, H., Pierce, J. Y., Porter, D. E., Richlen, M., Schandera, L., Triezenberg, H. (2022). A Strategic Framework for Community Engagement in Oceans and Human Health. Community Science.
Warwick, A., Avers, B., Pomeranz, E., & Doberneck, D. M., (2021, September/October). Community engagement professional development: An Extension, state agency and university partnership is key to building engagement capacity. The Wildlife Professional 15(5), 35-39.
Recent Presentations
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(September 2021)
Broader Impact Professional Competencies for Successful Leadership
McNall, M., Doberneck, D.M., McDowell, J., & Heitmann, M. (2021, September). Broader Impact Professional Competencies for Successful Leadership. Workshop. Engagement Scholarship Consortium Conference, September 13, 2021.
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(May 2021)
Broadening the impact of your work: Designing a route to intentional engagement
Gerig, M., Zuccarino-Crowe, C., Hunnell, J., Triezenberg, H.A., & Doberneck, D.M. (2021, May). Broadening the impact of your work: Designing a route to intentional engagement. Workshop. 64th Annual Conference on Great Lakes Research, Virtual, May 17-21, 2021.
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(October 2019)
Designing a Week-Long Faculty Development Workshop About Community-Engaged Scholarship
Doberneck, D. M. (2019, October). Designing a Week-Long Faculty Development Workshop About Community-Engaged Scholarship. Workshop. Engagement Scholarship Consortium Conference. Denver, CO. October 8, 2019.
Current Projects
- MSU Graduate Certification in Community Engagement
- Summer Intensive on Community-Engaged Scholarship
- MI Department of Natural Resources – Wildlife Division
- Community-Engaged Scholarship Write-Ins
- Community-Engaged Scholarship Writing Retreat
- Sea Grant Extension Community-Engaged Research Institute
- Michigan Sea Grant Extension Fellows Program
Past Projects
- Outreach and Engagement in Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure at Michigan State University, 2002-2006
- Discussion Guide for Departments and Colleges about Community-Engaged Scholarship in Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure
- Typology of Publicly Engaged Scholarship
- Disciplinary Variations in Publicly Engaged Scholarship
- Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure Policies of the Member Universities of the Big Ten Academic Alliance
- Publishing Patterns in Interdisciplinary Community Engagement Journals, 1990-2015
- Community Engagement Success Stories in Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure, 2002-2015
