Lorilee Sandmann, Ph.D., is professor in the Adult Education Program, Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, & Policy at the University of Georgia. Previously, she served as Associate Vice President for Public Service and Outreach at UGA and Executive Director of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. In addition she was Vice Provost for Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Partnerships at Cleveland State University, Director of University Outreach at Michigan State University, and held faculty, administrative and extension and outreach positions at Michigan State University and the University of Minnesota. Her bachelor's and master's degrees are from the University of Minnesota and her doctorate is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in adult education and business management.

The focus of Dr. Sandmann's career has been developing knowledge that can help solve public problems through the collaboration of communities and institutions of higher education. She has become a recognized national and international leader and scholarly practitioner in this field, now called the scholarship of engagement, with particular focus on (a) conceptualizing the theory and practice of the scholarship of engagement, (b) identifying and strengthening major institutional change processes and systems that promote and institutionalize higher education community engagement, and (c) building capacity for engaged scholarship with future faculty, current faculty, and higher education administrators.

Based on her research, she has published widely in journals such as Review of Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Innovative Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, and Change among others. Her latest book is Institutionalizing Community Engagement in Higher Education: The First Wave of Carnegie Classified Institutions (Sandmann, Thornton, & Jaeger, 2009). A recent chapter is "Second Generation: Community Engagement Promotion and Tenure Issues and Challenges" in The Future of Service Learning: New Solutions for Sustaining and Improving Practice (2009) by Strait and Lima (Stylus Publishing). Sandmann is also a frequent keynoter and presenter at national and international meetings such as the American Education Research Association, Association of American Colleges and Universities, Association for the Study of Higher Education, International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement, and National Outreach Scholarship Conference.

Dr. Sandmann has been involved in major educational and institutional change processes promoting and institutionalizing community engagement and in restructuring criteria used to define and evaluate faculty scholarship. For over 10 years, she was co-director with Amy Driscoll of the award-winning Clearinghouse and National Review Board for the Scholarship of Engagement, initially sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She has coached and consulted with more than 35 institutions in their development and implementation of community engagement. Further, she has been part of designing and conducting capacity-building programs related to the scholarship of engagement from VA Tech's national executive engagement academy, to University of New Hampshire's faculty-focused Engaged Scholars Academy, to a funded national pilot program, Houle Engaged Scholars, for doctoral students and their advisors in the development of community-engaged research.

Dr Sandmann has been inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame, was president of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education, and serves on the National Advisory Panel for Community Engagement of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.