Richard Kiely PhD ’02, a senior fellow in the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, has been inducted into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship. The honor recognizes Kiely’s more than 20 years of experience and expertise in advancing community-engaged learning, teaching and research.

“Richard’s work has helped shape and catalyze community-engaged learning at Cornell,” said Katherine McComas, vice provost for engagement and land-grant affairs. “Election to the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship is a fitting recognition of his impactful contributions both here and within the broader field.”

From 2011 to 2015, Kiely was the inaugural director of the university’s Center for Engaged Learning and Research, a predecessor of the Einhorn Center. Now as a senior fellow in the center, he leads the design and implementation of program evaluation and assessment, ensuring that the university offers community-engaged learning that benefits students, faculty and community partners. He also oversees the Engaged College Initiative, where the Einhorn Center partners with deans and leadership from each undergraduate college to make community-engaged learning a central part of their curricular, co-curricular and research programs.

In 2005, Kiely was recognized nationally as a John Glenn Scholar in Service-Learning for research that developed a transformative service-learning model. He is a co-author of Community-Based Global Learning: The Theory and Practice of Ethical Engagement at Home and Abroad (2018) and co-founder of the Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative, a multi-institutional network advancing community-based learning and research.

In his nomination letter, Robert G. Bringle, Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Philanthropic Studies, IUPUI, wrote: “Dr. Kiely has been a pioneer and leader in the field of global service learning and transformational education. He is well-established as a scholar-administrator who continues to make significant contributions to the field of community engagement.”

As a member of the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship, Kiely joins a consortium of scholars and practitioners who are recognized for advancing scholarship that serves the public good. Founded in 2013, ACES highlights scholarship that has direct societal impact on complex societal needs and issues. ACES provides a non-partisan, transdisciplinary, research and practice-based voice for community engagement scholarship through its cultivation of partnerships with national and international associations, groups, and initiatives that promote high quality community engagement scholarship.

Kiely will be formally inducted during an online ceremony honoring new members on January 12.