John Reiff, Ph.D., has worked with civic engagement and service-learning in higher education since 1980—as a college teacher, as director of service-learning/civic engagement offices at a small private college in Tennessee and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, then since 2015 as Director of Civic Learning and Engagement for the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, where he works with the state’s 24 community colleges and state universities to make civic learning an “expected outcome” for their undergraduates. His recent work has two major focuses:

• He is consulting directly with provosts and key faculty and staff at each institution in the Massachusetts public system to help them move toward the goal of involving every undergraduate in civic learning—through faculty, staff and curriculum development that includes a commitment to racial equity and justice, and
• He is organizing “Career Pathways for Community Leadership” with ten Massachusetts community colleges, an initiative based on the Community Learning Partnership model, creating learn-and-earn curricular programs leading to credentials for students to pursue careers as community change agents.

He has written extensively on civic/community engagement, including the work he did with the other co-editors of Anti-Racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices, which was published in 2023 by Campus Compact. He and his co-editors were Campus Compact Equity and Engagement Fellows in 2023-2024, meeting with people from across the nation about applying the practices of anti-racist community engagement.