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**In no particular order
Compañeros Por Salud: Partners in Health
Deborah Shelton, PhD, RN, BC; Carolyn Mull, PhD, RN; Mary Grace Amendola, BSN, doctoral student; Olga Jarrin, BSN, Doctoral student, University of Connecticut, School of Nursing; Deborah.Shelton@uconn.edu
This paper documents an interdisciplinary partnership initiated by the School of Nursing at the University of Connecticut and the Hispanic/Latino community in rural Windham County, CT. The goal of this partnership is to reduce health and mental health disparities for Hispanic/Latino families who reside in the Windham County, CT service area. Hispanic/Latino persons comprise 33% of the total population in this community. Windham has documented need noted in Healthy Connecticut 2000 (CT DPH, 2000). Despite some improvements, Hispanic/Latino’s had the worst health outcomes in CT when compared to other racial/ethnic groups indicating a disproportionate burden of injury, disease, and death. The Healthy CT Initiative (1994) in Windham identified its goal to “improve access to local public health services by encouraging health policy decision-making at the community level to improve their quality of life”. Priorities listed: infectious diseases; interagency and service coordination, collaboration; substance abuse and violence prevention. A Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) process guides the efforts to address the health and mental health disparities for Hispanic/Latino families. Extensive assessments utilizing primary and secondary data, windshield surveys, community meetings, key informant interviews and focus groups have been completed to date. The process supports the engagement of faculty and students in research, learning and service in partnership with this community. Collaboration among the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Psychiatry, and Pharmacy have leveraged some clinical resources through a student-run clinic, mental health training for a promotores program, health promotion and screening activities. A planning grant for Latino Mental Health services has been awarded through the Office of Rural Health.
The New England Consortium: A University-Community Partnership to Build and Strengthen the New England Health and Safety Movement
Jane Fleishman, Paul Morse, Chuck Levenstein, Craig Slatin, Department of Community Health and Sustainability University of Massachusetts Lowell, craig_slatin@uml.edu
The New England Consortium (TNEC) is a university-community partnership based at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and includes five community- and labor-based organizations that each coordinates a coalition for occupational safety and health in different regions within four New England States. The partnership formed in 1987 in an effort to garner federal funds for providing health and safety training to workers engaged in hazardous waste operations and emergency response. TNEC was awarded those funds and continues to receive them to the present – going into its twentieth year of existence. The partnership has two primary goals: 1) to conduct the training program for which it receives funding; and, 2) to use that program to build and strengthen the New England health and safety movement. None of the partnering organizations views this project as critically important to its mission, but all view it as valuable for supporting its mission related activities. Twenty years of cooperation has required considerable negotiation and compromise by all parties. Yet, the consortium has neither established new goals within the twenty years nor pursued strategies to engage in additional activities. Sets of member organizations have established other partnerships, but none with the intent of strengthening or further developing The New England Consortium. The paper will discuss this relatively unique university-community partnership within the context of principles and guidelines set forth in the literature about university-community partnerships. Through a historical analysis of the partnership’s operations and dynamics, we will discuss its viability, strengths, and challenges, and how its member organizations have balanced their efforts to pursue and achieve both goals.
University-Community Partnerships for Health: Wellness Education for Teen Mothers and Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
Mary Duquin, PhD, mduquin@pitt.edu; University of Pittsburgh, Department of Health and Physical Activity
This paper reports on three University of Pittsburgh Department of Health and Physical Activity health education outreach projects. The goal of the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren service learning program was to help prepare University of Pittsburgh graduate students for work in health care professions and to improve the quality of life of grandparents as parents by addressing their health care needs. Through collaborative learning and sharing of ideas both grandparents and students benefited from this partnership.Students learned about real world health issues by working in a diverse community setting. This program involved one on one interaction with each student being paired with a member of the Grandparents As Parent group at Vintage Senior Center. Health education activities included: assessment of health needs and concerns, instruction in accessing and evaluating Web based computer health information, providing nutrition information, stress management techniques, fitness guidelines, coordination of health care needs, health management education, information on children’s health care, insurance concerns, social support, disease prevention and health screening information. Through this experience students and seniors grew in both self-knowledge and independence. A second project provided an intergenerational health and wellness program for kinship caregivers and their families. The program took place over a 12-week period and focused on education in (a) Health, Exercise, Nutrition and Stress Management; (b) Parenting Education; and (c) Religious Practices (such as worship, scripture, and prayer). The quantitative findings viewed in combination with the qualitative findings of the focus groups, participant observation and interviews provided helpful indicators of the program’s outcomes and effectiveness. A third ongoing service learning and health outreach project provides health education, physical education and tutoring to teen mothers at the Roselia Center School in Pittsburgh. This University-Community partnership, now in its third year, allows students in Pitt’s School of Education to cultivate their teaching skills and gives them hands on experience devising lesson plans, working directly with students, and instructing students of various skill levels while reaching out to a group of students who are often overlooked within the community creating a positive learning experience for them.
The Boston Community-Academic Mental Health Partnership: Developing a Sustainable Community-University Participatory Mental Health Research Center
Alisa Lincoln, MPH, PhD, Jonathan Delman, JD, MPH DsC (cand.); Melissa Hagan, MPH mjhagan@bu.edu
Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPR) is increasingly being used by community-university partnerships in the field of public health. CBPR methods focus on the active re-allotment of power between academic and community stakeholders; establish a critical link between research and action or practice; and, emphasize reciprocal transfer of knowledge, skills and capacity throughout the process, thereby imparting community members with tangible practical benefits as a result of their engagement and participation. While many community-university partnerships employing CBPR have focused on health disparities, few of these efforts have involved persons with serious mental illness. Mental health research has typically left out consumer input, resulting in service gaps, barriers to service utilization, and delayed translation of research into practice. Established in 2004, the Boston Community Academic Mental Health Partnership (B-CAMHP) was designed to bring together academics, mental health consumers, and other mental health community stakeholders to create a sustainable research partnership. In 2005, the B-CAMHP was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to further develop the partnership and to conduct a pilot study of consumer perspectives of psychiatric emergency care, one of the first studies of its kind. This paper will offer insight into the processes and infrastructure necessary to develop a mental health community-academic partnership, the opportunities and barriers that occur when an equitable partnership is established between a private university, a government agency, health care institutions and consumer-directed non-profit, grassroots organizations, and the successes and challenges associated with the initial stages of the partnership’s community-based study of consumer perspectives on psychiatric emergency care.
A Partnership of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs for better College-Community Relations
Nancy Moses and Diane Bell, Bridgewater State College, dbell@bridgew.edu
At Bridgewater State College, a unique structure allows for supportive collaboration between the academic and student affairs for effective community service and service learning and better community partnerships. Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost Nancy Kleniewski and Vice President David Ostroth worked together to merge two separate initiatives to form a cooperative outreach structure. The Community Service Center was created in 2004 in response to new president Dana Mohler-Faria’s priority of community service for the college. Director Diane Bell was hired to organize the volunteer and community service efforts of the college and give direction to the civic engagement efforts. Provost Nancy Kleniewski at the same time initiated service-learning projects to enhance the efforts that faculty were making in connecting service to academic content. One of the most important innovations made was that the office for the Faculty Associates was placed in the Community Service Center where collaborations could easily take place. Through the combined efforts of the Community Service Center and the Faculty Associate, the effectiveness of the community service and service-learning projects has increased, which is to the benefit of both the college and the community. One of the most successful collaborations was the “Inspire Festival” that Bell and Moses worked on to celebrate National Volunteer Week. The team created a week of programming that featured the successes in community service and service-learning with recognitions and exhibitions. A highlight of the week was a faculty/staff/administration forum on collaborations between academic affairs and student affairs led by the respective Vice-Presidents. In addition, a major recognition banquet was held that celebrated the work of the community collaborators, legislators, faculty and staff.
Does One Size Fit All? Models and Strategies for Sustaining Gains in Community-University Partnerships
Joan Arches, PhD, College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts, Boston, joan.arches@umb.edu
This presentation will address the issue of achieving the promise in sustainable community university partnerships by putting forth case examples utilizing different strategies. The presenter will present three case examples of her work with the Columbia Point community in Boston, where she works as a professor in the College of Public and Community Service at the University of Massachusetts. The first example will focus on a service learning collaborative class, which made use of participatory action research to conduct a community needs assessment that resulted in the development of a new organization called the Columbia Point Community Partnership (CPCP). This organization, which had a community board and two paid staff, had as its mission to improve the quality of life and build community for all those who live, work, and learn on Columbia Point. It promoted, initiated, and supported community university partnerships and community building activities across institutions and organizations on the peninsula. The CPCP provides one model/strategy for sustainability. During its three-year existence, among other things, it was responsible for the creation of an ongoing service learning class, Hic Cup, now in its fourth year. Hic Cup (Healthy Initiative Collaborative: Community University Partnership) uses European Social Action, which incorporates the work of Paulo Freiere, to facilitate a process of community problem solving, community building, and social change. A diverse group of local youth partner with a multicultural, intergenerational group of University Massachusetts students in this ongoing undergraduate service learning partnership project. A second example is based on partnership projects carried out under the auspices of the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) grant. The grant has included building community art, a community garden and a charrette. Teams of undergraduate and graduate students have been involved in every step of this grant. The undergraduate students have all worked on credit bearing curricular activities. One of the outcomes of the grant has resulted in a community-tutoring project in partnership with a community youth center and a community health center. Students carry out the tutoring as part of a service learning class while others can volunteer.
CRP WAS-IS-WILL BE HERE: LEARNING FROM AND PROVIDING FOR THE COMMUNITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING PROGRAM’S COURSE-INTEGRATED COMMUNITY-BASED PROJECT WORK
Mark Tripak, U. of Texas Austin, marktirpak2000@yahoo.com
From planning students serving as facilitators of house meetings and community “visioning sessions” in the Barton Hills neighborhood of Austin, Texas, as participants in the Fall Semester 2004 offering of CRP 381: Planning Processes and Practice, to students working on-the-ground to determine the infrastructure of a new city in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, as a requirement of the Fall Semester 2001 elective course CRP 387C: Infrastructure Planning, the Community and Regional Planning program of the University of Texas at Austin, School of Architecture (UTSOA-CRP) has made community-based project work a key – if not a requisite, component of its classroom teaching and planning instruction. With this professional report, I attempt to offer resources towards addressing the question of how course integrated community-based project work (CCPW), or “academic service-learning,” can best be sustained and/or enhanced by the UTSOA-CRP program, based on the assumption that CCPW is teaching approach that the program intends to continue utilizing and hopes to derive the most benefit from. Specifically, with this report, I provide the CRP program: a definition of academic service-learning/CCPW based on experiential learning and democratic education theory; a general review of recent service-learning research focused to the benefits and challenges of this learning approach for students, faculty members, and other project stakeholders; an introduction to what is known about planning instruction and planning practice – and the “gap” separating the discipline from the practice; an overview of the CRP program’s history of community-based learning, and a more in-depth exploration of recent CRP community-based learning projects; an assortment of “good principles” that can guide experiential education and academic service-learning. Ideally, this paper will add to the growing body of literature related to academic service-learning as an approach to planning instruction, while offering the CRP program useful tools and resources to consider in program design, implementation, evaluation, and planning.
A Community and Universities Working Together to Change the Approach to Research Partnerships
Dean Cleghorn, Greater Lawrence Family Health Center; Milagro Grullon, City of Lawrence, Susan Koch-Weser, Harvard U; Rachel Siemons, Health Care for All; Cora Roelofs, Linda Silka, Craig Thomas, UMass Lowell; Dean Cleghorn dcleghorn@glfahc.org and Milagro Grullon, MilagroGrullon@CITYOFLAWRENCE.COM
The Lawrence Mayor’s Health Task Force Research Initiative is a an academic-community collaborative project. The project aims to build a research infrastructure to assure that research conducted in Lawrence will provide a clear benefit to the community by including community members in all research phases. Established in the fall of 2006, the Initiative is being led by a working group from the Lawrence Mayor’s Health Task Force, and includes representatives from the City of Lawrence, area universities, and community organizations. Many local community organizations have been approached over the years and asked to facilitate research in Lawrence. However, the researchers making these requests have had varying levels of sensitivity to community concerns and varying abilities to form collaborative relationships with community groups. The Initiative has developed a set of core principles for research partnerships, a list of criteria for agreements between partners, and a model to help guide researchers and community members toward an equitable and mutually-beneficial research process and result. To make these materials accessible to both researchers and Lawrence community members, the working group has also created a glossary of research terms, is developing a web-based version of the Research Initiative’s work that will be posted on the MHTF website, and plans to translate all of its materials into Spanish. Next steps for the Research Initiative include soliciting feedback and support for the principles and guidelines from the wider Lawrence community, including community organizations and those holding political office, as well as planning for the institutionalization of the Initiative’s work.
Worcester UniverCity Partnership: If 1 Is Good, Are 9 Better?
Armand Carriere, carriere@universitypartnership.org
The concept of a college or university partnering or engaging with a local community is not a new phenomenon. Historians like Ira Harkevey can take us back through the story of American higher education and cite numerous examples of colleges defining themselves in relation to their surrounding communities. It is within the past 20 years that the concept has gained new credibility and dramatically increased visibility, taking advantage of a confluence of factors including enlightened self-interest on the part of colleges and universities, a heightened sense of social consciousness on the part of a generation of faculty and students, the rapid growth of organizations like Campus Compact and their influence on linking service with curriculum, and the timely and much needed infusion of funding from sources like the federal government and the philanthropic community. During this resurgence period the single institution-community partner(s) model has developed, indeed flourished, with models and examples occurring at all levels of higher education. In 2005 a unique variation on the theme of campus-community engagement was established when the Worcester, MA. UniverCity Partnership was founded. A formal collaboration among the 9 colleges of Worcester, the City of Worcester, and the business community was established. The overarching goal of the Partnership is economic development. The paper will examine the early progress of this unique collaboration and highlight the factors enabling some of this success while acknowledging some barriers to meaningful partnerships. It will also look at the implications and possibilities for replication elsewhere.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Their Communities: Partnering to Achieve and Sustain Success
Dr. Alma Thornton, Director Center for Social Research, Southern University alma_thornton@subr.edu
William Hawn, Program Manager Southern University Economic and Enterprise Development Project and Universities Rebuilding America Partnership Project
Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge campus, Center for Social research has been actively involved in identifying, developing, and sustaining successful partnerships in its surrounding communities. The communities are characterized by very high rates of unemployment, school dropouts, poverty, and crime. This area has been identified as having a very high number of renters as well as high numbers of very old, and severely dilapidated, abandoned and blighted houses in need of demolition. The Center uses a multifaceted approach to assist residents in changing the face of their community as well as addresses challenges of identifying individuals and organizations willing to partner and create sustainable partnerships. Successful partnerships have been established with community-based and faith-based organizations, local churches, businesses, neighborhood organizations and government. This paper will discuss the strategies we have used to successfully build lasting partnerships and sustainable improvements in local communities.
New Structures and Strategies for Community Engagement and Training Partnership Development in a Merged Comprehensive University
George De Lange, Director of Academic Engagement and Collaboration George_deLange@nmmu.ac.za
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa
The paper provides details on new structures and strategies that have been developed for engaging with the external community as a result of the mission and vision of the new Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU). The NMMU was established as a result of a merger of the University of Port Elizabeth, the Vista University and the Port Elizabeth Technikon. The merging of the differing educational philosophies and teaching models required of the new institution to develop a holistic and multifaceted approach to community engagement. The objective of the paper is to indicate how these new engagement structures and strategies will allow for: increased participation in the activities of the university by an increasing diversity of interest groups and stakeholders; greater responsiveness to the social and economic needs of the local community and region it serves and; increased co-operation and training partnerships. The paper provides details on a holistic approach to community engagement by defining and clarifying the concept engagement and an engaged university, highlighting the benefits, defining the underlying philosophy and characteristics of an engaged university and by presenting a conceptual framework for categorising the engagement activities of the university. The paper further provides details of lessons learned so far in terms of developing a philosophy for the new comprehensive university.
P. Denise Cobb, Ph.D., Assistant Professor pcobb@siue.edu
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville - Sociology and Criminal Justice Studies
Partnerships are not always ideally democratic or collaborative in their enactment. Goals such as cooperation, open communication, and equality while ideal are difficult to attain. Thus, while ‘partnership’ may connote equality and democratic governance, the actual structure of relations and daily operations may vary considerably. Participants’ and scholars’ attempts to address power distributions are critical to creating equitable and sustainable community-university partnerships, however, existing analyses often overlook the impediments posed by systematic status inequalities that frame relations and agenda setting processes in such organizations. In spite of participants’ ideological commitments to equality and shared power, pre-existing structural inequalities among partners persisted and led to hierarchical relations in the partnership, participants’ perceived disenfranchisement, and actors’ distrust of power brokers. Thus, entrenched inequalities based on social statuses, such as race, class, and gender or organizational legitimacy filtered into organizational life and compromised the goals of equality and shared power. In this inquiry, I examine the ways in which partners of different types, in this case - university administrators / personnel, local government officials, and community residents or stakeholders, exerted their powers in one community-university partnership. This research relies on data from 17 semi-structured qualitative interviews with a wide range of key organizational participants, observations of planning meetings and community forums, and a quantitative survey of key participants. Finally, I use these data to demonstrate the ways in which the distribution and enactments of power contributed to the well being of the partnership in some cases and led to more deleterious outcomes in other instances.
Responsiveness to community needs through student volunteerism: a case study on a student-run Non Profit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa
Varkey George, Director: SHAWCO, University of Cape Town, South Africa, www.shawco.org
SHAWCO (Students ‘Health and Welfare Centres Organisation) was started in 1943 by a group of medical students and much later on acknowledged, recognized and supported by the university. It has now been in existence for over sixty years. The students were appalled by the poverty, lack of hygiene and lack of medical facilities in certain areas of Cape Town, and became determined to do something about it. What started as a small operation has now grown into one of the largest student volunteer organizations. About one thousand two hundred students as well as twenty community volunteers are involved in the projects, all of whom give of their time and energy for the same goal of building a better future. The uniqueness of this organization is that students take responsibility and manage and implement programmes. They are involved not only as volunteers but rise through the ranks as project leaders, curriculum planners, bookkeepers, steering committees, student president etc. The organization is registered as a Non Profit and the Constitution states that no decision is valid unless there is a student majority. Thus, the students own the organization. It is the only one of its kind found on a Higher Education campus. The youth sector runs tutoring, arts, sports, debating, computer training and life skills programme that benefits about 1500 township children, the health sector treated 5000 patients in 2005 and the staff fed, clothed and looked after 300 elderly and 140 children. The aim of SHAWCO is to, on one hand, provide much needed services to the community and, on the other, grow responsible young people who would take up the reigns in government and private sectors and would be aware of problems of inequity. In short, SHAWCO at the University of Cape Town, in South Africa, aims to send out to the world not only well educated graduates but also caring and humane citizens.
Where Will Students Learn to Collaborate to Reach Community Outcomes?
Dr. Judith Oleson, Associate Professor of Sociology/Social Work at Gordon College,Valerie Buchanan, Director of the “Gordon in Lynn” Program, Judith.Oleson@gordon.edu
Where will students learn how to collaborate across sectors to reach community outcomes? How will students be prepared for the cross-discipline work necessary for global issues that do not know departmental boundaries? How will we equip students to be leaders in their organizations and communities that must cross sectors and partner to solve complex community problems? Universities and Colleges will not be successful unless their own educators model this behavior, and demonstrate collaborative leadership. Dr. Oleson will describe her research and experience in cross-sector partnerships and Ms. Buchanan will highlight the mechanics of developing a comprehensive college-community partnership. Ms. Buchanan was recruited by Gordon College to develop a partnership model that focuses on an asset based approach to urban community development. Using the name ‘Gordon in Lynn’, Gordon College established an office in downtown Lynn and hired additional staff to build bridges of partnership between the college and the city. A group of 17 student leaders facilitate Gordon student involvement in each of their 25 Community Partners around the city of Lynn. As Gordon approaches the completion of three years of bridge-building between Gordon College and the City of Lynn, momentum has picked up and expectations are running high. Thanks to major funder, Oasis Development, hundreds of Gordon students were involved this year in academic and co-curricular volunteer work in Lynn through various campus/community partnerships. Gordon has recently constructed a new residence hall in the city of Lynn adjacent to the Gordon in Lynn office. The 24 Gordon student residents are required to be active in the community on a weekly basis. This is a living learning community with a focus on the City of Lynn and themes of civic engagement and community development.
International University-Community Partnerships
Heather Makrez, Graduate Student, UMass Lowell, hmakrez@umassp.edu; Dept. of Regional Economic and Social Development
The University of Massachusetts aims to provide an affordable, accessible and high quality education for its students. In a world that is interconnected and expanding everyday, the university is an integral part of building and maintaining partnerships not only with its local community, but with its international community. Students will be better prepared for the world if they are exposed to different cultures, different communities and a broad range of service learning. The University works toward this goal through its diverse group of faculty, staff and students. International research and global partnerships are established on a regular basis and the university wants to promote this type of activity. Through Memorandums of Understanding and Exchange Agreements, the University is able to expand these valuable learning opportunities to its students as well as to the other countries with which it is related. This paper will take a look at what the University of Massachusetts has to offer, what its mission and future goal will be, as well as how we can promote the extension of programs. We will look at how service learning is beneficial to both the community and the university and how this helps UMass became an international institution.
Partnerships for School Success: Achieving the Promise
Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Rossy: Matos-Miranda@woodrow.org
Caribou High and University of Maine Presque Isle; Dorchester Education Complex and University of Massachusetts Boston; Lowell High and University of Massachusetts Lowell; University Park Campus School and Clark University
Over the last few years, five school-university partnerships have come together under funding from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and with the guidance from leaders at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. These partnerships are aimed at bringing universities and high schools together so that students for whom college may not yet be a family tradition will acquire the skills that they need to succeed at higher education. In the past, high schools and institutions of higher education often have not worked closely together, and as a result they face a variety of obstacles in being able to understand each other and work together in ways that benefit underserved students. This paper will describe the innovative strategies that are being used by these five very different partnerships to overcome differences and meet the needs of students. While one cohort in Maine focuses on Professional Development, for example, the Lowell partnership has emphasized systemic change as the solution to alignment challenges. Both cohorts are likely correct in their approach owing to their differences in size. Empowering and energizing a small group of teachers and sustaining that focus is key for small schools, whereas working with teachers to reach other teachers who to in turn to reach students may be the approach needed in large schools. In both cases, a change in culture may be taking place. The paper will consider possible benefits of the cohort model being used by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation in fostering cross-partnership learning. We will also consider whether cohort approaches might also be effective in other areas of community-university partnership building. The paper will end with a consideration of how such partnerships can be sustained and disseminated to the many communities in which universities and schools are struggling to find ways to work together and overcome their differences.
Informal Partnerships Work: A Look at the Relationship between the Coalition for a Better Acre and the Regional Economic and Social Development Department
Yovani Baez, James Rather yovani.baez@cbacre.org Coalition for a Better Acre
Informal partnerships between universities and community-based organizations are beneficial to both parties, and it is important to understand how they work and what can be done to improve and sustain such partnerships. In this case, the writers will examine the arrangement that exists between the University of Massachusetts-Lowell’s Department of Regional Economic and Social Development (RESD) and the community development corporation Coalition for a Better Acre (CBA). This partnership was built on strong personal relationships between faculty and students within the department, and has grown over time due to an environment within the University’s administration that encourages connections between the university and its surrounding community. The CBA benefits from this partnership through increased personnel capacity; with students assisting CBA staff and members in activities such as grant writing, neighborhood organizing, and data gathering. While discussing this partnership the writers will take their own experiences into account, as both writers of this paper have benefited from the partnership that now exists between the CBA and RESD. Each writer spent time working with the CBA as interns through the Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Work-study Program. These internship opportunities are a direct result of the informal partnership RESD and CBA have developed over the last several years. In recent years this internship has become a formalized partnership between the CBA and the RESD department, which administers the HUD work-study program. The research model will consist of interviews with staff at CBA and faculty within the RESD department to ascertain how each party feels about the current partnership and its sustainability. Additionally, past and current students from the RESD department who have worked or are working with the CBA will be interviewed.
The Role of Universities in Community Development and Empowerment: The Case of the Okavango Delta Management Plan
Dr. Lapologang Magole, Research fellow, University of Botswana, Okavango Research Center, lmagole@orc.ub.bw; Dr. Rachel DeMotts, Research fellow, University of Botswana, Okavango Research Center, rdemotts@orc.ub.bw
Most rural development project acknowledge the need of a combination of financial, human, and natural capital. Financial capital reflects the monetary investment required to implement and sustain development projects. Human capital provides leadership, policy direction and labour to plan and implement development projects, ideally engendering benefits at the local level. Natural capital represents the environmental resource base upon which development takes place, which is also often a key source of contention among stakeholders. These are normally focused on land and water, but can also refer to wildlife and agricultural resources. In this paper, however, we argue that there is a fourth and critical form of capital not only for rural development but also for community empowerment: institutional capital. Institutional capital can be used to assist local participants in development projects to nurture capacity, participate in governing the process, and benefit more fully from the outcomes. It is to this form of capital that universities can contribute and play a crucial role. In particular, universities can take on the roles of community advocates as well as educators. Rather than remaining outside of such processes as observers, universities have a clear responsibility to assist local residents and support the development of effective tools for local participation in projects that will have profound effects on local communities and livelihoods. To illustrate the importance of this role, this paper will discuss the participation of the University of Botswana’s Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (UB-HOORC) in the development of the Okavango Delta Management Plan (ODMP). The ODMP process gave the University the opportunity to work with Delta communities on a rural development and natural resources planning project. In its role as the primary facilitator of community participation, UB-HOORC ensured that throughout the planning process the voice of local residents was heard. The university also prioritized providing full information about the planning process so that local residents could participate in the creation and implementation of the plan, but also so that the plan would address both their interests and concerns. The paper will also address the difficulties experienced in this process and draw lessons for university involvement in environmental consultation in rural areas that are increasingly affected by tourism.
Using Community-University Partnerships to Stop Discrimination by Local Government Against minority Firms
Ralph Bangs, PhD, Associate Director, Center on Race and Social Problems, University of Pittsburgh, Rbangs+@pitt.edu
Audrey Murrell, PhD, Associate Professor, Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh
Our paper will describe an innovative approach to community-university partnerships that we developed in Pittsburgh and are applying to two other cities in the US for the purposes of stopping discriminatory practices by local government against qualified minority firms and helping these governments to increase participation by the firms in contracting. In our recent pilot project regarding a major local government in Pittsburgh, we had three partners:
University researchers, who documented low levels of minority firm participation in the local government’s contracts and identified local government practices that inhibited access by qualified and interested minority firms to contract opportunities; Leaders of community organizations, such as the local African American Chamber of Commerce and Urban League, who met with local government leaders to encourage them to make minority contracting a priority and to implement the recommendations contained in the research reports; The legal director for the local American Civil Liberties Union, who plans in the next few weeks to formally request immediate action by local government officials as recommended in the research reports and plans to file a class action law suit in federal court if satisfactory action is not taken.Detailed descriptions of the roles of each partner, the timing and nature of their actions, the ways that the partnership was fostered and maintained, interactions of the partnership with the local government, use of the media, and outreach efforts to the public will be discussed. The impact of the partnership on discriminatory practices in local government and the reasons for success or lack of success will be assessed. The contribution of our model in Pittsburgh to academic literature and understanding community-university partnerships will be explained. Further, we will describe our new project to transfer and apply our Pittsburgh model to local governments in two other cities of the US, Boston and Chicago. Our pilot studies in Pittsburgh were funded by two research centers at the University of Pittsburgh and by a local foundation. Our new two-year project in two other cities is being funded by the Fulfilling the Dream Fund, which is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and other national foundations.
Community/University Partnerships: the view from both sides of the fence
Ezra Haber Glenn, Director of Community Development Lawrence, MA eglenn@public-planning.org
In his work for the City of Lawrence, as well as his prior position in the City of Somerville, Ezra Haber Glenn has supervised over a two dozen student interns working on summer fellowships, independent study work, team projects, and other short- and long-terms assignments related to land use, community development, and urban planning. At the same time, as an Adjunct faculty member at both the University of Massachusetts—Lowell and Tufts University, he has placed students in similar projects in other cities or urban settings. This session will draw from these experiences to present the benefits and challenges of academic work in a professional (and governmental) setting. Mindful of the very different components that make for a “successful” project from the respective points of view of the public sector “client” and the academic “advisor” (with an obligatory nod to the actual needs and interests of the student as well), the paper will discuss these perspectives and explore the potential for overlap (i.e., mutually-beneficial projects). Central to understanding this dynamic is an appreciation of the very real differences in available resources, schedules and expectations, political concerns and alignments, and personal career motivations of the parties involved.
Community-University Partnerships: Helping Small Towns With Strategic Marketing
Dr. Janet Cherrington, Minnesota State University, Mankato, janet.cherrington@mnsu.edu
Now more than ever, communities must think, plan, and act on their futures, or be left behind in the new era of place wars. During the past 20 years, the durable lesson of places seeking to improve themselves is that all places are in trouble, or will be in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the economic stability and livability of any place requires the community to ask itself why anyone would want to live, relocate, visit, invest, start or expand a business there. In other words, what does the community or “place” have that people want or need? A partnership between two institutions of higher learning and a small city in south central Minnesota helped resolve this dilemma and will be the theme of my presentation.
Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSU) has provided an excellent framework for communities to follow in improving their infrastructure and services, and promoting themselves to the outside world. As a case in point, MSU Urban and Regional Studies (URSI) students and South Central Technical College (SCTC) students worked with and actively engaged the small city of Janesville, MN (pop. 2,193) in developing a strategic marketing plan. Through a university, technical school, community partnership, Janesville received a promotional marketing tool for a few hundred dollars—the cost of the printing plates. This was possible because URSI students donated their research, writing, and marketing plan as part of an Urban Management course. When the brochure completion date arrived, a team of URSI students made a presentation before the city council that attracted more residents than the meeting room could seat. A week later, URSI students delivered the brochures to both local and regional locations in the southern MN metropolitan area. A copy was also sent to the Advertising/Public Relations Manager of the state’s “Explore Minnesota Tourism Department,” who called it “…a great project for students and a valuable tool for the community.”
What’s Art Got to do With It?
Ronnie Campbell, Patty Coffey, Heather Derby, Linda Doung, Toni-Marie Henry, Marc Horne, Andrew Morel, Joel Morel, Vicki Watson, Lowell High School and University of Massachusetts Lowell, Patricia_Coffey@uml.edu
Community-university partnerships can go in so many different directions. Who decides which direction they will take? Should take? What role can students play? Should they play? These questions confronted us directly in our project, What’s Art Got to do With It?, that brought together high school students, undergraduate and graduate students under the leadership of a university team and a cultural organization to examine the status of arts as an economic development impetus in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. The goal of our summer team was to look more closely at this and the extent to which it is being achieved in the eyes of those who live and work in Lowell’s various neighborhoods. We wanted not only to interview people throughout the community— and completed the project with over 300 interviews in hand—but to present these interviews and the questions they raise in ways that would provoke discussion throughout the community. We developed a video, a website, and reported in a variety of public outlets about what we discovered, all with the intent to provoke discussions about next steps for Lowell. Our video serves as the voice of all of those that we spoke with, and tells the story of the present situation in Lowell.While our findings on the arts are very interesting, equally intriguing is what we learned about how a diverse team of students can contribute to fostering community-university partnerships. In our presentation, we will illustrate some the ways in which student teams can become a major force in bringing together communities and universities to address local issues. We will also discuss some of the challenges such teams must overcome if they are to successfully integrate the differing perspectives of communities and universities.
Artbotics: The Challenge of New Partnerships
Jerry Beck, Hyun Ju Kim, Fred Martin, Linda Silka, Diane Testa, and Holly Yanco, Revolving Museum and University of Massachusetts Lowell, Dr. Holly Yanco, Department of Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell (Holly@cs.uml.edu)
Community-university partnerships have often drawn upon a subset of issues and disciplines: poverty, housing and disciplines such as education, health, and economics. Many opportunities for partnership remain untapped. In addition, many funding agencies (the National Science Foundation, for example) have begun to focus on partnerships as a way to increase the success rates of programs aimed at recruiting underrepresented students into college. We intend to examine a partnership that brings together new disciplines and new community partners including an art museum, an art department and a computer science department to use specific projects in Artbotics to involve students in ways that will increase their likelihood of selecting computer science as a college major and career goal. We address the following questions: What are the challenges in creating such a partnership, one that brings together nontraditional partners? What kinds of challenges emerge as these partners attempt to work together in new ways? What are the implications for new and untenured faculty in becoming involved in community partnerships of this sort? How can the interdisciplinary opportunities enhance the integration of teaching, research, and outreach? What strategies work for assisting tenure and promotion committees to understand the value of partnerships such as this? What can art departments and computer science departments contribute to partnerships?
Universities have traditionally emphasized a disciplinary focus and allegiance. As universities change, they increasingly are turning to strategies for bringing disciplines together to develop new forms of knowledge and new ways to involve students and communities. This paper will situate this discussion within the pressing concerns of how to succeed at bringing nontraditional students into disciplines such as computer science.
Rising to the top: A model for excellence in Interdisciplinary Collaborative Service Learning
Karrie A. Kalich, PhD, RD, Keene State College, kkalich@keene.edu
Michael Hanrahan, MBA, Keene State College, mhanraha@keene.edu
The authors present a case-study on an interdisciplinary service-learning project involving computer science and health science students. Students created a health-based website for the In-Shape program of Monadnock Family Services. The In-Shape program is a wellness program aimed at improving the physical health and quality life of people with severe mental illness. Using the Problem Based Service Learning model as a guide, presenters created a collaborative, yet challenging, classroom environment. The process involved students reflecting on the needs of the user from both a usability and content perspective resulting in a final product which exceeded expectations. During the project, Health Science students conducted focus groups with the agency user to increase knowledge of strengths and challenges unique to the user and develop appropriate and applicable content. Website content was shared with the computer science students who were challenged to develop a website that effectively communicated the information. The web pages were critiqued by students, professors, agency staff and users. Based on feedback, the students edited and combined the individual efforts into a best of group, and ultimately the best-of-class site. Students worked diligently and strove for a higher level of excellence due to the interdisciplinary, collaborative (yet competitive) nature of this service-learning model. Authors will discuss lessons learned and successes related to this 3-year project from inception to implementation.
Building Public Policy from the Ground Up: A Case Study in Community Partnerships sedwards@NORTHSHORE.EDU
The paper will use a case study method to describe the process of initiating, developing, and sustaining a working relationship between North Shore Community College and community partners related to a Violence Prevention Initiative (including a Gang Prevention program model) in the city of Lynn, MA. A recently published “white paper” detailing the process within the context of a public policy analysis will be available for attendees. In its initial capacity, the Task Force was brought together to work on a Gang Prevention initiative and the development of a pilot program serving youth-at-risk. In its broader role, the Task Force was to focus on collaboration to develop an effective anti-gang strategy for the Lynn community. The growing gang violence was identified as a major issue for the city. With several options for possible collaboration, the group decided to create a Violence Prevention Task Force to become a working group to consider the problem. Representatives from the Mayor’s Office, School Committee, Police Department, Probation and Juvenile Court, as well as faculty and staff from the college were invited to join the group. Task Force teams worked on program planning, identification of youth-at-risk, and collating an inventory of community and college resources in a developing process. The Task Force expanded to include community-based organizations and the President of the College made informational presentations to the Lynn City Council and the Lynn School Committee. Additionally, the College collaborated with the city to host a community-wide Violence Prevention Week of activities, with a day-long event involving college students and staff, as well as middle and high school youth from city schools. The Task Force continues to meet regularly and will be actively involved in evaluating and improving the continued implementation of Project Y.E.S. It is also being expanded to include additional community-based organizations and social services agencies (DYS, DSS). The intent is to facilitate the growth of the Task Force into a city-wide violence prevention group with the College in the role of convening and supporting their efforts. Additionally, the Task Force interacts with the District Attorney’s Office and the Essex County Anti-Crime Council.
The Mill City’s Park and the Community’s College: Weaving the Cloth of Collaboration
Sheri Denk, Middlesex Community College, denks@middlesex.mass.edu; Susan Thomson, Cultural Anthropologist, MCC faculty; Becky Warren, LNHP Supervisory Park Ranger
In 2001, the Northeast Region of the National Park Service( NPS) began to focus specifically on the relationship of national parks to civic engagement. With the participation of directors from Lowell National Historical Park (located in downtown Lowell, MA) a report outlining the NPS vision for civic engagement was created. In particular, it was noted that civic engagement required the use of multiple partnerships, including civic dialogue techniques for public involvement; the engagement of community stakeholder groups; involvement in community and regional planning; and partnership with academic institutions and other educational organizations. At about the same time, Middlesex Community College (MCC), located in downtown Lowell adjacent to Lowell National Historical Park (LNHP), included fostering civic engagement and community partnerships on a local and global level as one of six key goals in its 2003-2005 strategic plan. MCC and LNHP then joined together in 2003 to create the Lowell Civic Collaborative (TLC), funded from 2003-2006 by a Learn and Serve America grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service. The Lowell Civic Collaborative aimed to increase civic engagement among MCC’s young adult student population and extend LNHP’s connections into the community through an innovative series of civic dialogues, a community task force, and faculty institutes to restructure courses with a service-learning and/or civic engagement component. Over 400 students had completed civic engagement and/or service-learning projects at LNHP or Minute Man National Park (MMNHP) near MCC’s Bedford campus, and 31 MCC faculty members had incorporated civic engagement and/or service-learning into their courses. In this paper, we will analyze the challenges, pitfalls and successes of this collaborative process. In so doing, the special roles of both community colleges and national parks in providing preparation, education and opportunities for life-long, sustained engagement and leadership in civic life will be illuminated.
Learning to Get Along: Large Institutions, Institutional Cultures and the Art of Making Partnerships Work
Christoph Strobel, Department of History, Christoph_Strobel@uml.edu; Robert Forrant, Department of Regional Economic and Social Development, University of Massachusetts Lowell
The Lowell National Historical Park and the University of Massachusetts Lowell, two of the largest public institutions in Lowell, Massachusetts have had a great deal of influence over the city’s various efforts at remaking itself over the last 35 years. Each institution has played a leadership role in preserving the city’s rich industrial history, with the Park taking the critically important role in documenting and preserving this history in the form of numerous exhibits, walking tours, and cultural exhibitions. At the same time, part of the University’s articulated mission is to engage in the long-term social and economic development of the city and the regional economy. The Park and the University are thus intertwined and must work together to be successful in their overall missions. How the Park and the University resolve to work together on a Park-issued contract to complete a comparative ethnographic study of past and contemporary immigration in two of Lowell’s neighborhoods offers an instructive way to analyze just how these two large institutions blend their cultures and approaches to research and civic engagement so as to accommodate one another and at the same time produce this ethnographic study, the main element of which is a careful comparison of late 19th century and late 20th century immigration into the city. The proposed paper will describe and analyze this process.
Socio-Environmental Conflicts and Partnerships in the Defense and Protection of Environment and Health Rights: A Flower Plantation in Ecuador
Homero Harari and Raúl Harari, IFA – Institute for Development of Production and Work Environment, Quito, Ecuador, homeroharari@gmail.com
Flower production is one of Ecuador’s most important productive activities. It employs approximately 100,000 people. After more than 20 years of production, a variety of environmental and health problems arose among workers and neighborhood areas where the work was done. Problems stem from the intensive use of many pesticides. Low doses are applied, but quite often. The continuous exposures of workers and the lack of isolation from neighborhoods affects a large number of people. In the production of roses greenhouses are built with big windows to get ventilation inside. When pesticides are applied, the wind distributes the dust to the surrounding areas. This case study describes and analyzes how a school beside a flower plantation was affected. Students suffered headaches, nauseas, and other slight, but persistent common neurological symptoms. School authorities tried to discuss this with the owner of the plantations and asked them to take some measures to avoid this problem, but they did nothing. After some time the Director of the school went to the local authorities of the municipality but they did not intervene. So, they decided to utilize a legal authority called Defensor del Pueblo in a local Court. The court was to find some agreement between the school and the plantation, but still nothing happened. When the situation was more difficult, and because there are not this kind of services from the universities in this town, the school asked to a non-governmental organization to study children’s health. A cross-sectional study was done and there were significant differences between children exposed and non exposed: more negative health symptoms and lower performance in some neuropsychological tests occurred in the students beside the plantations. Public meetings showed the results of the study to authorities, members of the plantations, and social and environmental organizations, teachers from the school, parents of the children of the school, members of the Chamber of Flower Exporters. The plantation now tried to improve the protection of the children at school. Not everything is solved, but at least it is a new road to go through. This case study shows that in developing countries we very often find an absence of the State or a lack of power of the local authorities. Social organizations can denounce and call the media; but study and data were needed to generate action.
Community Rights to a Clean Environment: Who Defines? Who Decides? Who Acts? A Case Study of Industrial Hog Operations and Nuisance Law
Mansoureh Tajik, Dept. of Community Health and Sustainability, UMass Lowell Mansoureh_Tajik@uml.edu; Naeema Muhammad, Steve Wing, Gary Grant, Kendall Thu
Proliferation of large-scale corporate animal operations and polluting industries in rural communities can contribute to degradation of the environment, health, and quality of life. Affected community members are an important potential force for organizing to oppose these impacts. Community members’ awareness of their rights as well as availability of research documenting violations of those rights can help promote their involvement in mitigating their situations. Using a community-based participatory research approach within the definitional framework of public nuisance law, we conducted a series of semi-structured, open-ended interviews to explore the impact of the industrial hog operation practices on the communities and the neighbors living near the industries. We explored, in particular, the impact of odor from the industy on the neighbors’ right to "clean air", "unreasonable interference with quiet enjoyment of life" and "beneficial use of property". The results of this study can be used by the local communities, community based organizations (CBO's), academic researchers, and other partners to: a) develop effective educational programs and workshops to raise public awareness about communities’ rights; b) document possible systematic violations of those rights by the polluting industries; and c) better assist the communities and research partners in their activism and efforts to affect public policy.
The Devil is in the Details: Defining Civic Engagement
Dr. Margaret Brabant, Director, Center for Citizenship and Community
Chair, Department of Political Science, Butler University, mbrabant@butler.edu
Dr. Donald Braid, Associate Director, Center for Citizenship and Community
Butler University, dbraid@butler.edu
For over nine years, Butler University's Center for Citizenship and Community (CCC) in Indianapolis, IN has been spearheading the civic engagement activities of the university. The CCC has been a recipient of both a COPC and New Directions grants. This experience has yielded important theoretical and pragmatic insights into successful civic engagement practices. and assisting our institution’s effort to assess the outcomes and costs associated with civic engagement. In this paper we develop a multifaceted insight that we have come to understand is foundational to successful civic engagement efforts—There is no definition of civic engagement that fits all institutions and each institution must undertake the difficult work of defining civic engagement for itself in a way that is both in alignment with the institution’s mission and its local context. Our experience shows that unless an academic or student affairs unit enters into community-based activities with a definition of civic engagement that reasonably and coherently aligns within the institution’s educational mission, precious resources will be squandered pursuing the elusive goal of engagement.
In order to have any meaningful impact upon students, partners, and the institution, civic engagement efforts must be defined in relation to the local context—and our use of the term local is intended to evoke the complex meanings that unfold through anthropological and political theories. For example, civic engagement activities must make sense in the geographical meaning of local and fit both the nature and needs of the existing community and the capacities of the university to provide service. These efforts must also fit locally in a temporal/historical sense. Our paper is intended to stimulate a discussion among session participants. In particular, we will present concrete examples of our own outreach efforts and share our experience developing a definition of civic engagement, which is at once local to our institution and has components which might be adopted by other institutions. This definition is based on the concept of “civic mindedness.” If the conference structure allows, we will then facilitate discussion through specific questions that encourage participants to compare and contrast their experiences with ours so that all participants may benefit from an exchange of information that can be used to bolster community service and assessment of the engagement process.
How High-Powered Institutions Can Squeeze Out the Community in a High-Stakes “Community Based Project”:The Example of Where Elephants Weep, Lowell’s Cambodian-American Opera Project.George Chigas, Political Science, UMass Lowell, George_Chigas@uml.edu
On Dec 18, 2005, the New York Times article “If Cambodia Can Learn to Sing Again” appeared describing the creation of a new Cambodian-American opera production. Although the opera project is based in Cambodia under the auspices of Cambodian Living Arts, a good deal of the production work has been taking place in New York City and Lowell, Massachusetts, the location of the second largest Cambodian community outside of Cambodia. In 2005, as part of the development of the opera, it was decided that a month-long series of workshops and rehearsals would be conducted in Lowell in April 2007 in preparation for the opera’s premiere in Cambodia later that year.
This decision initiated one of the largest collaborate efforts by the major educational and cultural institutions in the modern history of the city. The letterhead of the Lowell opera project, called Where Elephants Weep, includes over 20 organizations, about half of which are Cambodian-American. The project is co-coordinated by the executive director of the city’s cultural office (Cultural Organization of Lowell) and a Cambodian-American community leader. The project’s steering committee is comprised of the provost of the UML, the superintendent of the Lowell Historical National Park, two deans from Middlesex Community College, including the widow of former Senator Paul Tsongas, the artistic director of the Merrimack Repertory Theater, among others. There are seven working sub-committees and the project budget approaches half a million dollars, an unprecedented amount for a cultural event of this kind.
This paper will discuss the challenges and successes of conducting a collaborate project of this magnitude, giving particular emphasis to the role that the Cambodian organizations have had in organizing and implementing the project. What has been the relationship between the Cambodian organizations and the city’s major cultural and educational organizations? To what extent has the project’s funding, priorities and organizational structure enabled or prohibited an inclusive partnership among equals working towards common objectives?
Partnership and Pedagogy: Community Outreach and Student Engagement
James M. Dubinsky, Dept. of English, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, dubinsky@vt.edu
In recent years, Southwest Virginia has seen a dramatic influx of people from other countries due to three trends: The growth of graduate programs at Virginia Tech. These programs attract married, adult students from Asian and Middle Eastern countries, many of whom come with their families and eventually settle in the area; The attraction of migrant and seasonal farm workers from Mexico to the area’s agricultural industry; The resettlement of refugees, predominantly from Africa, Eastern Europe, and East Asia, through the Roanoke Office of Refugee and Immigration Services. Many of these people face significant difficulties caused by language. Non-profit agencies have made a concerted effort to improve the outlook for the international population by offering English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and other family-oriented programs such as “Conversations” and “Mornings Out.” These programs increase opportunities for socializing, focusing on helping women, who are especially vulnerable and isolated from communities of support. The agencies also are dedicated to increasing awareness about diversity in the region. However, the demand for services is expanding beyond the non-profit agencies’ capacity to serve. One hopeful solution is the International Community Project (ICP), a coordinated partnership between the YMCA and Virginia Tech in its initial stages. The ICP addresses challenges faced by those who move here from other countries. The main participants at the university are faculty and students, supported by programs offered through the Service-Learning Center, the Department of English, the Office of Student Affairs, the Office of Outreach and International Affairs, and the Office of the Provost. In my talk, I will examine the ICP. My primary emphasis is to examine the Sustainability Program, the component that focuses on the ICP infrastructure and seeks to find creative ways to fund and sustain partnerships. One creative way is to assist non-profit agencies, in this case the Y, in the grant-writing process.
Two-way academic benefit as university students tutor teachers in low quality elementary schools
Gabriel Cámara, Convivencia Educativa, A.C., Mexico, gcamara@laneta.apc.org
The moral and intellectual imperative that moves universities to link their work to the needs of poor groups, often in their own neighborhoods, assumes that there is a sharp gradient of knowledge and academic resources between the two groups. This assumption, though basically correct, needs clarification, more so since students comprise the majority of the university representatives who reach the poor. The value then, of any activity promoted by the universities will be highly dependent on the real competency of those very students. Simply being a university student does not mean that the person has the competency to share relevant knowledge with the poor. This is commonly true in massive public universities in countries like Mexico, but is also the case in the United States as credentialism moves ahead of true academic learning. From this perspective, the challenge to find effective links between universities and neighborhoods is compounded by the more basic need to improve the academic competency of the students. This double task can be attended to simultaneously when university students help turning ordinary classrooms of extremely poor elementary schools into efficient Learning Communities.
The work that Convivencia Educativa, A.C., has been doing in public schools of Mexico linking university students and willing teachers has demonstrated the double benefit for both groups as they become self-directed learners and coach their students to do likewise. Of particular interest is the support that the method gives to Teachers College students and teachers in in-service training. Documenting the work has already produced several books, one of them in English, and it is undoubtedly one more source of insights and relevant experiencies to better integrate the work of the universities and the needs of the poor.
Partnering in a ‘Publish or Perish’ World: Strategies and Supports for Collaborative Theorizing
Charlotte Ryan, UMass Lowell, Charlotte_Ryan@uml.edu
Community-university partnerships have blossomed in the last decade but many scholars still fear that partnerships, while enriching teaching and service, will detract from scholarly research and publications. Reinforcing that anxiety, editors of peer-reviewed journals express preference for traditional submissions following well-established routes of inquiry. The editor of the prestigious journal, Social Problems, for instance, counseled prospective authors that academic publication are 'inherently conservative.' Authors, he cautioned, should be "good little glaciers" contributing incrementally to pre-existing paradigms. Even participatory action researcher, Edna Bonacich, who collaborated with immigrant workers in Los Angeles’ sweat shops, warned participatory action-researchers, “Do not try this until you have tenure.” Drawing on a successful ten-year partnership between the Rhode Island Coalition against Domestic Violence (RICADV) and the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP), this paper suggests strategies and supports for collaborative theorizing from field experience. I will describe how RICADV and MRAP set mutually-beneficial, problem-driven research agendas. Central to our strategy were iterative cycles of dialog, action and reflection that encouraged collaborative theorizing from and about field experiences. Our findings, published in formats serving both community and academic audiences, suggest that when allowed to mature, collaborative theorizing produces new methodologies and concepts that benefit scholars and communities alike. To sustain collaborative theorizing, centers for service learning need to create supportive infrastructures including partner training, funding mechanisms, recurrent opportunities for reflection, means to disseminate innovations, and establishment of institutional memory.
Project COBWEB: A Partnership Between UMass Lowell and the Brazilian Immigrant Center to Improve Working Conditions of Brazilian Immigrants in Massachusetts
Carlos Eduardo Siqueira and Fausto da Rocha, Carlos_Siqueira@uml.edu
We will discuss the origins, development, and challenges faced by the partnership between a faculty and students from UMass Lowell and the Brazilian Immigrant Center, located in Allston, MA. The Brazilian Immigrant Center is an eleven year old non-profit organization whose mission is to defend the workers’ rights of Brazilian immigrants in Massachusetts. This five year old partnership started without any source of funds when Dr. Siqueira and Brazilian students visiting UMass Lowell met with the director of the Brazilian Immigrant Center (BIC) to examine the problems faced by Brazilian immigrants in Massachusetts. After an initial period of volunteer work, UMass Lowell, the BIC, and a few other partners applied for a four year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to study the workplace health and safety conditions of Brazilian immigrant workers in Massachusetts, focusing on three particular groups of workers: housecleaners, construction and landscaping workers and food and restaurant workers. The Collaboration for Better Work Environment for Brazilians (COBWEB) in Massachusetts or Project COBWEB has allowed this partnership to expand in the last three years to create new initiatives that have contributed to strengthening the outreach of the BIC to Brazilians in the state and in Brazil. As a result of the partnership the BIC: leveraged grants from Foundations to support youth work; integrated workplace health and safety to the menu of services offered to Brazilian workers; produced written and audio visual materials in Portuguese to educate Brazilian immigrant workers and Brazilian community leaders about workplace hazards; improved its linkages with other universities in the state. The joint learning process evolving through this Partnership has elicited a host of challenges related to the social, political, and historical contexts in which it has matured, such as the tightening of anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S. and Massachusetts, the reduction of funds to support organizations representing immigrants, the lack of enforcement of laws that protect undocumented immigrants rights, and the enactment of laws and regulations that aim at reducing their already limited rights. The presentation will end with a discussion of the main elements that need to be reviewed by partners for successful partnerships to emerge and consolidate, including the distribution of resources, definition of priorities and objectives, establishment of clear communication channels, and ongoing evaluation of results of activities implemented.
The Community Classroom: Addressing public health issues in underserved communities through higher education service learning opportunities
Catherine A. Powers, EdD, CGS, LSW, powersoz@bu.edu
Boston University School of Medicine
Smoking Sleuths is an experiential learning curriculum that was developed and taught to elementary through high school aged children by medical students at 2 US medical schools. The purpose of this paper is to describe the first steps in building a community-wide service learning elective for medical schools participating in a National Cancer Institute funded tobacco education program with possible opportunities for implementation in schools of allied health, nursing, dentistry, education, social work and public health nationwide through a partnership with Citizen Schools, a national non-profit organization. Strategies for involving university students in public health teaching and research opportunities in inner-city communities, through diverse community partnerships are discussed. Twenty-one medical students from 2 medical schools participated in the tobacco service learning elective over a 2 year period. Medical students trained more than 300 Adolescents Tobacco Education Leaders (ATELs) in 6 inner-city Boston neighborhoods through the Smoking Sleuths program.