Jeri Childers conducts research, publishes, presents, and practices in the area engaging university and community leaders for civic change. Childers created The Engagement Academy for University Leaders that was offered by Virginia Tech's Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement in June, 2008. This is a unique, executive leadership experience designed to build institutional capacity for engagement with the context of the institution's strategic plan. In 2009, this program received the UCEA Outreach and Engaged Program of Excellence Award for Innovation in Outreach and Engagement. Building on two decades of research and practice in higher continuing education on successful partnerships and engagement, Childers shares innovative ways to engage constituencies and to leverage the intellectual capital and missions within universities to change the outcomes for communities.

As director of Outreach Program Development at Virginia Tech, Jeri L. Childers leads a team that provides solutions to workforce, organizational, and community problems locally and globally. She provides leadership for Virginia Tech's engagement activities for the Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement, the Center for Student Engagement and Community Partnerships, Continuing and Professional Education, the English Language Institute, Upward Bound/Talent Search, the Virginia Tech Fine Arts Initiative, and Virginia Tech's programs delivered in the National Capital Region, at the Inn at Virginia Tech Conference Center, and at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center. Last year, Outreach Program Development offered 450 programs, impacting the lives of more than 35,000 participants.

Virginia Tech received the inaugural 2007 C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Award for its partnership with the Virginia Tobacco Commission, community, and business leaders of Southside, Virginia. This was the first competitively awarded Magrath Award presented by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) in partnership with the Kellogg Foundation.

Virginia Tech is a Carnegie-Classified Community Engaged University, noted for "excellent alignment between mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices that support dynamic and noteworthy community engagement." Virginia Tech is among 62 institutions selected in the highest category, "Curricular Engagement, Outreach, and Partnerships."

Childers is an affiliate faculty member in Virginia Tech Higher Education program in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, School of Education, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and developed courses related to the engaged university and student engagement in higher education.

Childers has worked in outreach, engagement, and continuing education since 1986. Prior to joining Virginia Tech in 2004, she worked for the Pennsylvanian State University and the University of Missouri-Columbia. Over her 11-year tenure at Penn State, Childers served as the director of Workforce Development, director of Outreach Program Development, and the assistant dean for Continuing and Distance Education in the Smeal College of Business. She also launched the first Outreach Scholarship Conference at Penn State in 1999, serving as the conference chair until 2004. Her research interests include organizational, economic, and community development, continuing professional education, leadership in higher education, and university engagement.

Childers served as guest editor for the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement and is the author of a number of articles on outreach scholarship and engagement, international programs development, and continuing education. She currently serves on the executive committee of the Council on Engagement and Outreach of the National Association of State Land-Grant University and Colleges. She served as the chair of the University Continuing Education Association Outreach and Engagement Community of Practice and is responsible for launching an online database of Promising Practices in Engagement. In addition, she serves as a member of the Higher Education Network of Community Engagement and supports the Emerging Scholars Conference, which is held in conjunction with the Outreach Scholarship Conference